The Crazy Normal
by Kodiak Bear Country
Summary: McKay and Sheppard take the Jumper on a routine survey mission find out just how alien the universe can be. Spoilers for season two![COMPLETE]
1. Chapter 1

Summary: McKay and Sheppard take a Jumper on a survey mission and find out just how alien the universe can be.

AN: It's been a while since I've written or read anything, so hopefully the old fingers didn't get too rusty! We bought a house back in July when the only thing done was the footing laid, and we closed on the finished product the first week of October. I actually got to close the door last night and write in peace instead of sharing a living room with the family while I write. This is a WIP, but you all keep me writing every time so I pinky promise to update in a timely manner and finish so don't beat me with sticks...

And lastly, thanks to gaffer for being the best beta ever!

AN 10-23-2005: This is the beta'd chapter. When I uploaded the fic, I accidentally uploaded the wrong version, the unbeta'd version. This would make twice for me, and I'm totally aggravated with myself. There isn't any pressing reason for re-reading this chapter as the fixes were just better wording in some areas and no plot changes or add-ins so you won't miss anything by not re-reading, promise! Sorry for the mix-up!

**The Crazy Normal**

The Jumper was cold as it lazily drifted through space. Sheppard shivered in his jacket and stared at the dark vista that enveloped them like a pair of blinders. The only break in the blackness came from the spattered light of far away stars.

"I don't suppose there's a way to turn up the heat?" joked John. He wasn't sure if he asked just to break the growing grim silence of the cockpit, or if he actually believed that McKay could do something.

The grimace that wrapped across Rodney's face made it clear what the answer was before he'd uttered his reply. "I don't suppose you can go outside and push?" At Sheppard's droll look he sighed and said, "Then the answer remains no."

"You know, it could be worse," offered John, back to staring at cold space.

A look of incredulity and McKay snapped, "How? We're stuck in a burned out space ship, drifting through space and slowly freezing to death? How can it possibly be worse?"

A dead console did the impossible and beeped. Sheppard and McKay both stared at the contradiction to what they knew as reality. Tentatively, Sheppard reached for the console and pushed the switch. In response, a wave of discordant noise broke into the air, causing both men to wince.

Holding his hands over his ears in an attempt to stifle the discomfort, John said, "It's worse."

"What?" shouted McKay, pulling his own hands away from the sides of his head.

John pulled his hands away and shouted back, "I said it's worse!"

McKay's visceral response was as comforting as it was bothersome. John knew that Rodney had an inner core of toughness, but the outside was all cowardly lion. You had to shock the cowardly lion enough, beat him up, shout him down, and poke him as if with an electrical prod used on cattle, before you could get to it, but it was there. Right now, there hadn't been any such prodding and McKay was in the beginnings of panic mode.

The reason was the cause of the ear-splitting noise. The Jumper's course was mostly straight, but with a leisurely rotation that hid the source until the large arc came to a close, about the last twenty degrees out of three hundred and sixty. There, space rippled, exposing a blackness that wasn't typical cosmos. An anomaly that promised trouble. It was a sea of space not marred by the years-old light of distant stars that was just now reaching this area of the galaxy. Either something was blocking the light, or absorbing the light.

John's mouth had gone incredibly dry. "Black hole?" he asked. His eyes were permanently drawn to the area of perpetual night. If it were a black hole, then the greater mercy would be to end it now. His hand slid down to his pistol, almost of its own volition, and tightened on the metal grip, all the while wondering if it came down to it, would he have the guts to follow through.

Rodney angled his head to the right, peering out the screen to see as much as he could. The fear of the unknown had been pushed into the background by the scientific puzzle. He shook his head, preoccupied with the search for an answer. "No, at least not any black hole that we know of."

"This isn't something out of Star Trek, is it? You know, cloaking device or something like that?" Sheppard almost hated to ask because any space faring people that could possess that level of technology could present yet another threat to the Atlantis expedition. Then again, they could also be an ally against the wraith –

"Or something," McKay answered distractedly. "Does the noise seem quieter now?"

It did, actually, thought Sheppard with relief. But the relief was quickly squashed as the ship jolted forward.

"What is that?" Rodney jerked away from the view screen as if burned.

_That_ felt like the ship was being moved forward, and with a growing sense of danger, he checked the panel, verifying what he already knew. "Still dead," he said, glancing across at Rodney. "Whatever is out there, it's what's pulling us."

Rodney seemed to be running scenarios through his mind. He mumbled, and frowned, and when the ship lurched forward again, he breathed out the words, "Tractor beam."

"Tractor beam! Then, you think that -" Sheppard pointed at the blanket of nothingness, "- is a ship?"

"It has to be. A black hole would be a steady force. There wouldn't be any sharp tugs against the jumper, and I don't know if you've noticed, but we're speeding up." Rodney turned to Sheppard and shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "We're screwed, Colonel."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"If you get us out of this alive, I swear on Samantha Carter's blonde head, that I will never doubt you again."

Sheppard puzzled over McKay's comment, but vowed then and there, when he held up his end of the bargain and got them home alive, that he was going to finally get the story on this Carter person.

Seeing the determined glint in Sheppard's eye, Rodney thought maybe he should have kept his mouth shut. Then again, if it inspired Sheppard to higher levels of confidence, ability –

"Rodney!"

McKay jerked back to the problem at hand. "Yes, yes, I know. Imminent doom, again."

"No," snapped Sheppard, holding out something to McKay. He'd retrieved their weapons, and a life signs detector. He wasn't sure what else they'd need, or, for that matter, if these items would even do any good.

"And we all know how good I am with this," grumbled McKay, accepting the weapon anyway, and tucking it into the holster on his thigh.

"Just shoot at anything trying to hurt you," drawled Sheppard, trying to reassure him. "Or me," he added dryly.

"I can do that."

Sheppard slapped a reassuring hand on McKay's back. "I have faith in you."

Rodney paused. "You mean that?"

The memories of recent events intruded into both men's minds. The debacle over the super weapon had left a chink in their friendship…in Sheppard's faith in McKay. It wasn't so much that he didn't still believe in Rodney, it was that Rodney had used that belief to gain a second chance, and then almost took them both into oblivion by refusing to believe he was wrong.

But time, and other missions, had given McKay a chance to heal that breach. Rodney had been there when he'd been changing from the retrovirus – had watched over him in the stasis pod and risked his life to keep Sheppard alive, despite Caldwell's attempts otherwise.

Sheppard's easy grin stilled and drooped into seriousness. "Yeah, I mean it."

The grin was picked up and used by Rodney. The right hand corner of his mouth smirking higher than the left in trademark McKay. "Then what are we waiting for, let's go kick some alien butt."

Sheppard didn't move.

McKay's grin faltered. "No, really, let's go."

"We're waiting to be sucked up into the great beyond, remember? There's nowhere to go…yet."

"Oh, right. Well, then, let's get _ready_ to kick alien butt."

Sheppard figured that was a pretty good idea. Before he could move, the dim darkness was banished by a bright light. Their attention was pulled to the front again, and this time, what they saw confirmed what they had suspected. It was a ship, and the outer hull was opening. It was a gaping maw two, maybe three, times the size of Atlantis. Big didn't begin to describe what they were seeing.

"I guess that's our invitation to the party," observed Sheppard.

He moved through the bulkhead door and into the rear of the ship. McKay followed, mumbling, "I never liked parties."

OoO

It probably wasn't more than ten minutes till the Jumper was landed inside the alien ship, but it felt like an eternity to Sheppard. Judging from the sweating face of McKay, he wasn't the only one worried. The difference between Rodney and himself wasn't that he didn't get scared, it was just that John was able to hide it better.

"Ready?" he whispered to McKay, gripping his weapon tighter.

McKay nodded wordlessly.

Sheppard took a steadying breath, and hit the emergency release button. Since the energy blast hours ago, the origin of which they still didn't know, the Jumper's power systems had been down. The redundancies built in to the tech allowed for the opening of the hatch and some basic functions with the screens, but that was about it. The growing suspicion that the energy wave had originated from this ship had begun to niggle at Sheppard after it had started towing them in.

The aliens probably figured their prey would wait, and hide in the ship, in hopes of escape or trying to get in position to defend the Jumper, but that wasn't the Sheppard way of handling Things that Go Wrong on Missions. The best defense was to have a good offense. They were going to sneak into the alien's ship, and learn what they could, and hopefully manage to get out of here alive, or if the people behind the tech looked friendly enough, seek out someone to initiate contact.

"Keep low, and be careful," John warned Rodney, as he slipped out the hatch in a fluid motion, feeling the solid weight of the deck when his feet landed…

…and that's when he lost all grips on reality. The glaring light that had beckoned from the cold beyond filled his senses, blinding him. Sheppard groped for McKay. "Rodney?"

"I can't see!"

Sheppard felt McKay latch on to his free arm, and felt the man's nails dig in through the fabric of the jacket. "Same here," he said, trying to keep his voice low, and confident. "Stay close."

He stepped forward, not knowing where it would take them, but knowing they had to go on. His foot sank, and not even his fast reflexive tug backwards saved them. The problem was, when you are walking forward and expect to step on an even surface, smooth, hard – you don't hold back your momentum. Despite the blinding state, Sheppard hadn't held back. He'd hoped to go forward as fast as possible and get out of the glaring light that was keeping them from being able to see…and that's when he realized that thing about being prepared was all an illusion.

His leg was sinking fast, and the two states; sinking and blindness; drove even his anxiety level beyond recognition. John could only hope McKay wasn't in the same situation.

"Sheppard, I'm sinking!"

There went that hope. "You didn't step forward, did you?" he whispered hurriedly back towards Rodney. He couldn't see anything, but he could feel the physicist's presence.

"No," came a hoarse reply. "Oh god, this isn't good."

It's kind of funny how even in the worst of predicaments, McKay could manage the art of understatement, because now both of John's legs were sinking into a floor that suddenly took on the consistency of marshmallows.

John hadn't seen a lot of real aliens in his short time assigned to Atlantis. His exposure to Hermiod had been the exception rather than the rule, and the ribbing he'd taken over his naked comment had only recently leveled off. Seeing how he'd said it to McKay, he was still miffed that his supposed friend had let it slip just how shaken the imperturbable Colonel had been with his first face to alien encounter. Rodney was one of the few that knew his smart-ass comments covered the inner boy. The one that watched with unease and sought to keep others from knowing his true feelings.

They'd visited quite a few worlds, and aside from the wraith, they'd met humans. Rodney had gone into a detailed explanation of why they spoke the same language, or appeared to at least, but in the end what it distilled down to is minimal exposure to anything truly alien. Before now, that is.

"Rodney, can you grab the Jumper?" Even while Sheppard's mind was debating the situation, the military mind was searching for possible escapes.

He heard McKay grunt as the man twisted at the waist, already the floor had risen to mid-thigh on John and judging from the effort being expended behind him, it must be a similar state for Rodney.

"I can almost -" another strained groan before defeated, McKay whispered "I can't."

It was like being encased in ballistics gel. As he was sinking, the floor seemed to mold to his body. It was up to his waist.

"McKay, I -" John broke off. He didn't know what to say. The light was still blinding them, he couldn't move from the waist down, and every sense on him screamed panic. The feel of cold metal in his hand reminded him of the pistol still held tight. The warmth in his legs from the material holding them made him feel like he was being immersed in a standing bath. Every nerve seemed on overdrive.

"It's been nice knowing you, Colonel."

McKay's voice amplified along his jangled state. "We're not going to die," Sheppard replied harshly. They weren't. He would make sure of it. "You still have to tell me about Carter, remember?"

The thrashing of Rodney's arms stilled. "She wouldn't give up, either. Funny, how I keep getting stuck working with people who have God complexes."

"Birds of a feather," snorted Sheppard.

"Having a God complex and actually knowing you are one is not the same thing, but nice try."

"Maybe it'll stop soon," wondered Sheppard, ignoring McKay's dry arrogance. "Lift your arms!" he ordered as the warmth reached his sternum.

"Are we sinking, or is it rising?" McKay asked suspiciously.

"I don't know. I thought we were sinking, but now it almost feels like it's rising. I should've brought my sunglasses."

McKay started to reply, but his words were drowned in a cacophony of the same discordant noise that had broken into the cold dead cockpit of the Jumper. Was it ten minutes ago? An hour? A lifetime, it felt like.

Now Sheppard couldn't hear his only lifeline to companionship. He could sense McKay was still there, but the overwhelming sound isolated them as efficiently as would solitary confinement.

Whether they were sinking or the floor was rising, he didn't know, but Sheppard fought against the instinctual panic as the viscous material reached his neck. They were going under, and with the thickness being such that there was no hope of movement, it did look like things were coming to a gruesome end. Now he wished he'd told McKay, that oddly enough, it'd been nice knowing him, too.

He fought to keep his head above the material, but in the end, it was a fruitless effort, and he felt the gel sliding over his lips and into his nostrils, before rising slowly past his eyes and finally enveloping him entirely.

The comforting aspect was the cessation of glaring light and deafening noise. The nightmarish side was not being able to breathe. He mentally counted each painful second and fought to remain calm. Would it be like drowning? He'd heard when you drowned it was peaceful.

_Breathe._

The word was spoken, but he didn't hear it. He felt it. Sheppard tensed. Thirty seconds. Thirty-one. Thirty-two.

_Breathe._

Sheppard wished he'd told Elizabeth how much she'd meant to him. Her faith in him. Her support. He'd made Lieutenant Colonel and been granted the military command of Atlantis. Things he'd never dreamed of, he'd lived, all because she'd believed in him.

Thirty-four. Thirty-five.

_Breathe._

McKay. He'd been an arrogant bastard from the get go, and the very qualities that kept most people away, drew him in. It wasn't the cowardly exterior, or the belief that Doctor Rodney McKay always knew best, or his selfish absorption in the worry over his own life that was the real McKay. It was the man who actually did care what happened to others. The man who believed that what he was doing would change the face of science for the future. The man who worked till exhaustion in trying to save them all, and not just because his hide was at risk, but his friends lives. The man who refused to give up with the shield that wouldn't work on the planet with all those kids, or faced down a wraith, twice, to protect Sheppard.

How could he have misjudged the situation and gotten them literally up to their eyeballs this time? He'd let Rodney down, and now they were going to die because of it. He should've gone out alone and scouted before getting McKay involved.

Forty-two. Forty-three.

_Breathe._

The word that wasn't spoken was growing more insistent. Almost as if the encasing gelatinous fluid vibrated with the urgency. To breathe was the last thing Sheppard had the courage to do. But, it was the one thing his body was going to do in the end, whether he wanted to or not. If he hadn't been immersed, his mouth would've tightened in a worried frown, but he couldn't even feel his facial muscles' movement.

Fifty. Fifty-one.

God help him, because his lungs were burning now, and he knew it was coming to an end. There had been no change in the material. He hadn't dropped out of it, or been pulled from it. There would be no final thoughts to his friends or last minute warnings. No reprieve this time. He'd been on the cusp before, and survived, but he couldn't see surviving this.

_BREATHE!_

And Sheppard did.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Just a quick shout-out for thanks over the reviews. I will try to update frequently and quickly, because I know how miserable it is to be left hanging (and some of you have been responsible for that misery hehehehe). Thanks again to gaffer for the beta!

edited replacement - on the live preview I realized some of my italics dissappeared, argh! Just goes to show I should've taken the time to go through the entire doc before posting the chapter. Sorry!

edited again (yeah this is getting old) - I keep losing italics, hopefully this will be the final attempt.

**Chapter Two**

When Sheppard was eight he'd convinced his mom to hold his birthday party at the lake. Jewel Lake, a little blip on a map that had nothing of importance other than some real sand that'd been carted in by the recreational management, and a diving dock tethered about fifteen feet from shore.

They'd stayed late into the evening hours, when the sky had darkened just enough to make you struggle to see, and when the light from the fire lit up faces with a twilight orange glow. Jimmy had dared him to swim to the dock and back, not all that impressive of a dare, but they were winding down and looking for excuses to go back in the water while they could.

He'd taken the dare, which was a forgone conclusion. Kids just don't walk away from dares that their buddies toss their way. John wasn't an exception to that rule; in fact, he went out of his way for the biggest and baddest dares that one could be subjected to. This one was pity stuff, but he figured it'd be fun. And it was…till he was swimming back, only ten feet from shore, when his calves seized in cramps.

He'd buckled, wrapping in on himself before he realized what a bad idea that was, and then found he was choking out water while he tried to get his head up. His parents had always said never swim alone, but Jimmy had stayed on the shore to time him, and Jimmy couldn't see his struggles for what they were, because of the gloaming light. In the time it'd take a person to kiss Aunt Betty goodbye, and you had to understand that Aunt Betty insisted on double kisses and a few hugs, Sheppard was sinking and losing consciousness.

He'd felt the water slide down his throat, and he'd gasped for a clean breath, but all he got was more water. He'd panicked, and never realized that the strong arms of his dad had grabbed him firmly by the waist and were hauling him to the shore.

And that's exactly how it felt to breathe in the gelatinous material, and why he was sure the thing telling him to breathe was out to kill him. He didn't have a choice. His body did it anyway, but he'd held out a hope that the thing giving the instructions knew better than he did.

It felt like a less viscous type of silly putty sliding in his throat and despite the lack of room, he gagged, and sucked in more. Sheppard suddenly wished for the end to arrive, just so the horrible sensation would stop. He was drowning, but he was still awake to feel every awful moment.

_Stop fighting._

If John had been able to scream, he would've. If he'd been able to tell the thing that fighting was all he could manage, he would've. But he couldn't do any of the above, and the thick material seemed to be settling in his throat like a foam sealant.

Why wasn't he losing consciousness? Why wasn't he dying?

_We mean no damage._

Sheppard startled at the thought directed through the material. Was it reading his mind? Some kind of telepathic jellyfish people? And why the hell wasn't he dead yet?

_Our environment – not applicable to you._

The thoughts he heard inside his mind seemed to search for the proper words, but John got the gist of it. It was hard to describe, but the words weren't spoken, more like they were vibrating through the material. Sound waves penetrated through everything. If it were matter, sound would be transmitted. But, like in water, the properties of the matter can affect ability to hear, talk, and understand. His ears weren't receiving so much as it was an instant link to his nerves and the information was being transmitted, bypassing the entire route through the ear.

John thought one thing, now that he knew communication was taking place. Rodney.

_He is as you are._

And that was supposed to be comforting? Sheppard felt he was only being stopped from dying of a heart attack because he couldn't do anything at all. If he was suddenly free from the viscous matter, he knew he'd keel over and die from the shock to his system. Not to mention, how would this stuff every come out of his lungs? Were they destined to live like this until what?

We are altering area for carbon beings. We will preserve life. We mean no damage.

_No harm_, thought John.

_No harm. We will study carbon beings. We will preserve life._

If Sheppard could've sighed – well, the point being, he couldn't. He couldn't sit, scratch or breathe. He was immobilized, in a constant state of feeling like he was drowning, but nothing changed. He wasn't passing out, or getting better. It felt like stasis without the benefits of not feeling the passage of minutes and hours and days. Held between one breath and the next.

_Do you wish to sleep?_

Sleep? The beings were clearly telepathic, could they mean his desire to stop experiencing the terror of his predicament. Sheppard focused on the thoughts he wished to convey. _This is scary for us. _He imagined McKay was out of his mind by now. _How long till we're released? Can you clear our lungs of this material? If it remains, we will die._

_Soon. Sleep. You will not cease. We will preserve life._

The command issued, Sheppard felt an odd vertigo slip across his upper body, and a burst of starburst inside his eyelids, and he was drifting…

OoO

"Sheppard!"

John scrunched his eyes against the noise. He was tired. "Leave me alone," he mumbled without looking to see who it was. He rolled over, and felt the bed drop out from under him as he fell to the ground.

With a snap, his eyes popped open, and he found himself on his side, on a floor, looking at white walls. What the hell?

"Where am I?"

Rodney's two legs appeared in his line of sight, and stopped. Then, McKay's upper body dropped into the picture, and he peered at Sheppard irately. "Hello, why do you think I'm trying to wake you up? Where are we?"

Memories jolted through his mind. The energy pulse that killed the Jumper's systems. The ship and tractor beam, and the gel floor – Holy crap! Sheppard sat up, and started beating at his chest. "Is it gone?" he said frantically. He opened his mouth, and poked fingers in. "Waa was tha stuff?" he asked around the obtrusions in his mouth as he still sought to make certain it was all gone.

"Do you think you could breathe if it wasn't?" McKay pulled Sheppard to his feet, and turned around, studying the walls that looked like the one before. Exact replicas, each one perfectly alike, and none had anything appearing like an exit. "I woke up a few minutes ago, thanks for helping me through my hysteria, by the way. Finding you still unconscious did nothing for my heart. Flashbacks to The Blob."

"The Blob?"

"I suppose it could've been worse," mused McKay. "Aliens. I think having a face sucking thing implant it's young in my insides is worse than being eaten by the Blob."

"We're not being implanted, and we weren't eaten by the blob!" Sheppard put a hand against Rodney's forehead. Felt a little warm. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Okay?" Rodney's voice cracked.

So, maybe not the right thing to ask, winced Sheppard.

"What part of that did I say 'but at least we're okay'?" Rodney started pacing in a two foot sweep, which is to mean he'd take two steps, pivot, take two the other way, pivot and repeat. "Colonel, in case you haven't noticed, we've been swallowed by some kind of telepathic anemone, and are being kept for study. This isn't okay. Never is this okay – in fact, if I were to list a range from Okay to Not Okay, this would be predominantly Not Okay."

Sheppard almost smiled. Despite what McKay was carrying on about, the fact that he was still carrying on meant he was somewhat 'okay'. He started towards the wall in front of him, and ran his hand over the smooth surface. The room wasn't big, no more than twenty feet. "What did they say to you?"

"Do you want the Reader's Digest condensed version or the Rodney McKay's cliff notes version?"

"Which one is more succinct?" John asked sagely, frowning at the wall because his hands couldn't detect any imperfections in the surface…at all.

Rodney's lips quirked. "Same. I believe in always having options."

John looked sideways at McKay.

"Okay, okay. Carbon based life needs new area, breathe, sleep, we will preserve life, we will study life, the other is alive."

"Sounds about right," said Sheppard. He moved on to the floor, hands and knees. If the obvious fails, look for the not so obvious. "Say we do find an exit, do you think the entire ship is like -" he stumbled. Like what?

"Like The Blob?" McKay smiled smugly at Sheppard.

"Fine," agreed John, cocking his head slightly to the side and mentally counting to ten. "The Blob."

The smug smile grew slightly larger. "As a matter of fact, yes."

That's what Sheppard figured, which truly sucked. Even if they did find an exit, they couldn't go anywhere. These things would have to release them. They'd said preserve life – but they'd also said study. That one word, and the disturbing connotations, made John shiver.

He stopped crawling on the floor. What was the point? He was near one of the two beds. Not really beds, platforms, and no blankets or pillows or anything one would want to have for comfort. He didn't stand, or get up on it, but pushed his back against the solid support of the platform, and sat with his back somewhat straight and his legs crossed Indian style.

Rodney gave up his inspection of the floor as well, and joined him, sitting despondently next to his side.

"I'm sorry." What else could Sheppard say? The sudden quiet that had settled over them both let him know he wasn't the only one thinking they were screwed. "I shouldn't have had both of us leave the ship."

Rodney snorted. "Do you think it would've mattered?"

"Do you see any beings with arms, weapons, anything that could've physically gone in and removed you from the ship? Because I don't…so yes, it would've mattered."

"That's assuming that eventually I didn't leave in search of you, trusting that you'd gone and gotten yourself in trouble again, and needed rescuing." McKay sighed as he said it, not even having enough energy to make it as abrasive as usual.

As annoying as it was, John knew Rodney was right. And he would've done the same. Regardless of the present circumstances, if he was being honest, there wasn't a lot they could do or could've done. If they'd stayed in the Jumper, but not knowing then what they did now, why would they stay? The ship had no power, and who knows what would've happened.

But where were the aliens? They didn't create this little safe zone just to abandon them? It seemed pretty unlikely, but for as unlikely as it was, there wasn't anything reassuring him that it wasn't the case.

"I'm hungry," McKay stated abruptly. "Do you think they intend to feed us, or watch us starve to death, our bodies slowly digesting themselves for energy?"

Sheppard raised an eyebrow, and offered helpfully, "Don't worry, you'd die from dehydration long before it got to that point." He said it partially to dig at McKay, but also a little bit to state it for his own welfare. At least dying from dehydration was quicker.

"Do you think Teyla and Ronon are back?" asked McKay suddenly, changing the subject, that perhaps had gotten even too morbid for him.

The whole reason they'd gone on this mission. To waste time while half of the team was off running a trading expedition with some touchy people. Teyla insisted that the less obvious the military might, the better, and argued with Elizabeth to go alone if they wanted to make any progress at all. Because of the Daedelus, the urgency was reduced, but Atlantis still needed to be able to stand on her own feet in case the unimaginable were to happen, and they were cut off from Earth again.

Sheppard and Weir had sat down with Caldwell and explained the need to maintain trade relationships and seek out more as the wraith disrupted trade with other worlds established in their first year. That was the only reason, in the end, that Teyla wore Elizabeth down to agreeing, but she had insisted Teyla take Ronon. The Satedan could blend in and offer more might in the package of one additional person than anyone else.

Which left McKay and Sheppard spinning their wheels, and wanting to do something. Luckily, an unexplained phenomena was recorded by the Daedelus on her trip back to Earth. She relayed the information to Atlantis, and there McKay chimed in that it would be a good idea to take a Jumper out to see what could be causing the energy spikes in space that appeared empty. Now, unfortunately, they knew the source, and it wasn't empty space.

Sheppard did a mental shake, realizing he'd lost himself in his thoughts, and McKay was watching him, waiting impatiently for an answer. "No, Teyla said they'd be as long as a week. Maybe we'll be back before them."

Rodney looked at him in disbelief. "Why are you always optimistic? How is that even possible?"

"Studies show that my type of personality lives longer than your type." Sheppard pointed out that statistic with some satisfaction.

"That's for the typical person on Earth, not for those of us who walk through Stargates to other galaxies and fight life-sucking aliens, and get gobbled up by telepathic jelly fish."

"Anemones." Sheppard raised his finger half-heartedly with the correction.

"What?"

"You said anemones, I said jelly fish…or thought it. I didn't say it to you, did I? I can't remember -"

McKay's face slackened in that way he had of looking at you like you'd just answered zero on a Reiman sum that was increasing towards infinity. "Does it matter?" he demanded irritably.

A noise began to thrum through the floor. Like when they were encased in the gel substance, it wasn't so much of a hearing the sound, as a feeling the sound. It grew louder and both men shot worried looks to the other.

It would appear that the wait was over.

A shimmering of multi-hued lights coalesced in the middle of the room. Sheppard watched as a shape began to solidify. When it finished doing whatever it was doing, transporting or whatever, the object that now shared the room with them had him scratching his head in confusion.

"A vacuum cleaner?"

"Maybe it's a container with dinner?" McKay guessed, narrowing his eyes at the canister like thing.

"Go look," ordered Sheppard. "I'll even let you try it first if it's food."

"Your chivalry touches me," mocked Rodney, rolling his head a little to add to the effect.

"Look, it's a vacuum, what can it possibly do?"

"Would you stop doing that!" Rodney's face was flushed. "I've always considered superstition to be wasted effort, but can we try just a little bit to not tempt fate? Knowing our luck, it could do a lot. Probably kill us, or maim in some horrific way that we could only dream of."

"You can dream." Sheppard folded his arms. They were standing next to one another, having gotten to their feet when the thing began to form in the room, and both were still staring at in distrustfully. "I don't dream up things like man eating vacuums."

"It's not my fault you've got a poor imagination. I can't help being a prodigy."

"But you can help us; go touch the vacuum." Sheppard wasn't really going to let him do it. If anyone was going to get eaten by a vacuum today, it was going to be him.

_This form is a container for our essence_.

The communication came so suddenly Sheppard dropped his arms, and his mouth. He looked at McKay, and mouthed towards the canister vacuum object, _did that thing just talk to us?_

McKay mouthed back silently, _I think so._

_Carbon life forms, are you well? _

"Uh," John searched for something to say. "Well, that would, uh, depend I guess."

_Depend?_

Sheppard gained a little confidence and tugged on McKay's jacket to move towards it with him, pantomiming picking it up. Rodney's eyes bugged out and he shook his head and mouthed _no way._

"Yes, depend – we want to leave." Sheppard crept closer, pulling McKay along anyway.

_We will preserve life. We will study carbon based life forms._

Even as it finished sending the thoughts to them, John felt his insides clench. Study. Preserve and study, lab rats, but didn't most lab subjects end up being dissected?

"Now, see, that's understandable," Sheppard said reasonably, crouching towards the object, and waving at McKay to get on the other side. It was about twice as large as a regular vacuum and if they both grabbed at the same time, it wouldn't be able to get away. "But we've got some people who would really like us to go home now."

And when he said now, John emphasized it and reached towards the thing, cuing Rodney in to do so as well. Sheppard's hands made contact first, and that's when he realized he'd made another critical error. Just because something looks innocuous and safe, doesn't mean it is. And this vacuum felt like he'd touched a porcupine. An electrified porcupine.

McKay had been a second behind him, and had heard Sheppard starting to scream as his hands made contact, and he was able to pull back and avoid the bulk of the pain that John felt.

Sheppard fell to his butt, and tried to get control of the sudden somersaulting in his stomach, and the ringing in his head, along with the horrible stinging pain in his hands and arms.

_Touch without permission is not allowed._

The telepathic thought wasn't any different than the others. Not angry, or disappointed or surprised – clinical and caring, in a slightly contradictory way.

Rodney groaned and shot a very pissed look at Sheppard. "I told you so."

If Sheppard didn't feel so wretched, he would've tried to find something suitably sarcastic to send McKay's way, but as it was, he still felt like someone rang the Liberty Bell inside his head, and poked needles in every pore along his arms and hands.

_It will pass. Do you wish sustenance now?_

Food. Now it asked. "Will it…sustain…us?" John wondered what these aliens could produce that would be safe for them to eat.

_Yes._

"Alien of few words," he grumbled to himself, before taking a deep breath, and getting to his wobbly feet. He helped Rodney up, and noticed that McKay was trembling. Lack of food, probably. "What do you say, McKay, up for some dinner?"

"No, I prefer to starve to death," Rodney snapped. "Of course I am."

Sheppard rolled his eyes, because only McKay would get rude with aliens that had just shocked them into submission.

"Along with that, could we get our gear from our ship?" Sheppard felt naked, even in their clothes. Isolated here, without any equipment, or comforts. At least if they had their things it would give them something to do and maybe with McKay's equipment they could find some answers. Rodney carried some relevant Ancient tech and information wherever they went.

_We will provide for carbon based life forms. You will not need._

"It's not so much need, as want," explained Sheppard.

McKay chimed in, "We enjoy doing. In our ship we have things to do. To keep us busy."

_We will provide. You will not need._

Rodney threw his hands in the air. "Fine, fine. We get it. You will provide. How about some pillows, and blankets. Games, food, television."

Sheppard frowned, but it wasn't at McKay's outburst. That niggling part of his intuition was telling him what these aliens were reminding him of. He had the very distinct feeling like they were these alien's new pets.

_Items needed will appear shortly. Carbon based life forms have names. Sheppard and McKay. We have given new names. Sheppard is CB1, and McKay is CB2. CB1, we will begin study after sustenance._

Sheppard's anger at this information was reflected by McKay's disbelief. The alien thoughts in their minds had not been callous, but distant. Now, it was like a doctor giving out the schedule for surgery to the medical staff.

"Leave Sheppard alone," protested McKay. "You don't want to mess with us. We have powerful friends who will be looking when we don't return."

John widened his eyes at Rodney, trying to communicate silently for him to shut-up and not say anymore. Sheppard coughed loudly. "What my friend is trying to say is that we'd like to stay together." Normally, that'd be the last thing he'd want. If they were going to do something bad to him, he'd rather McKay not be there, but in this situation he kind of figured the better option was to remain as a team. He didn't want Rodney out of his sight. This whole situation was creepy.

_CB1 has made a valid request. So it shall be. After sustenance, both CB1 and CB2 will be made available for study._

Before Sheppard could ask more about just what that meant, the oversized vacuum shimmered and disappeared. He clapped his hands together once and rocked on the balls of his feet. "Well," he said, with forced exuberance. "That went well."

And this time Sheppard was pretty sure the pallor replacing the flushed look on McKay's face was anything but normal…


	3. Chapter 3

AN:Thanks for taking the time to read and review. I'm hopelessly addicted (hopelessly totally addicted). Anyway, Dr. Dredd, the vacuum came from my idea for this fic, to give these two guys the most alien encounter ever. So, be watching for some oddball stuff to appear as the chapters show!**  
**

**Chapter Three**

The aliens were true to their word, and mere minutes later some boxes shimmered into the room. Once they solidified, Rodney and John approached them warily. There were four, and Sheppard was eyeing them uneasily.

"You open one first," he prodded McKay's elbow.

"Why me?"

Remembering the earlier shock when he tried to touch the vacuum like being, he rubbed a hand up his arm absently, "Because the last thing that appeared here shocked me when I tried to touch it."

"Because you were trying to kidnap it!"

"It didn't know that!" retorted Sheppard. "Besides, it's not like we could've taken it anywhere. I was only going to try and convince them of our need to leave."

McKay dropped his hands to his side, and hunched his shoulders at Sheppard. "Telepathic. They knew, Colonel, which is why I attempted to tell you it was a bad idea, but did you listen, no, and I got some of that shock because of it."

"I knew," defended Sheppard.

McKay made some kind of harrumphing sound that made it clear what his opinion was, but he did move towards one of the larger boxes. At Sheppard's surprise he only said, "I'm hungry, all right? If they meant to kill us, they would've done it already."

"If you say so."

Clearly, Sheppard didn't think so. Then again, he wouldn't have let the vacuum eat McKay, and he wasn't going to risk something in the box exploding or sucking Rodney away, or anything alien like that, because god knows, this place was just weird enough for it.

Shouldering Rodney aside, he pulled the intended box near his feet, and pulled the tabs open.

"Huh, guess they are telepathic."

Rodney shouldered him this time, squeezing Sheppard to the side enough so they could both look in the box. There was Rodney's equipment from the Jumper, some cards and blankets that had been there, and a notebook and paper that John recognized as from his back pack. His mission notes.

"Guess they didn't trust us enough to send our bags. Which begs the question, how did they manage to rifle through our gear without any arms?"

"Clearly they are advanced, Colonel. They are adapting to our needs and finding ways to manipulate in the environment our _carbon-based_ bodies require."

Sheppard wasn't sure if McKay was impressed or annoyed with the aliens. Heck, for that matter, he wasn't sure which one he was either.

"Well, that's convenient," he said.

They were quiet as they opened the other boxes. One had something in it that looked like food, but it wasn't the food from the ship, which confused Sheppard. There had been at least a week's worth of MRE's and powerbars, why had the aliens not given those to them, when they'd taken the time to retrieve other items from the ship?

The blankets and pillows were nice-looking, and also alien-produced. The material was thin, and filmy, and didn't look at all like it'd keep someone warm, and the pillows were flat squares of a sponge-like matter. Not promising, and he found himself dreading the time when they'd crash from exhaustion.

Sheppard reached in for a package of food, and pulled it out, grabbing another and tossing it to McKay. Rodney caught it, and sniffed at the top wrapper.

"Can't smell anything," Rodney said, before peeling back the clear plastic film that sealed the food. He recoiled from the odor, and even John took a step back.

"God, what is that?" Sheppard had smelled some rancid things in his life, but this smelled like rotting flesh.

McKay had grown pale, and had set the container on the floor gingerly. He snapped a finger at Sheppard, still staring at the offensive food. "Quick, give me something to seal this with, or the smell will kill us long before the aliens do."

John couldn't argue with that. He started scrounging through the stuff in the food box, and found what resembled Ziploc baggies towards the bottom. He pulled one free and handed it to McKay, trying to not breathe in with his nose.

"If all of this smells like that, we're in trouble," John said watching McKay bag up the food.

Rodney froze, and stared at him, incredulous. "And we're not already?"

"There's trouble, and then there's trouble, Rodney."

"Right now, I think we're in a lot of trouble." McKay slapped the bag against John's chest, and slouched away dejectedly.

And that, John could whole heartedly agree with.

McKay had pulled out a pillow and blanket, such that they were, and got settled against a wall with his computer, doing what, Sheppard wasn't sure. From the sounds coming from the computer, he had the sneaking suspicion it was alien invaders.

With nothing better to do, he grabbed his notebook and pen, and headed over to a spot near by, but far enough away to give the physicist some space. He could tell McKay was trying to get some kind of control. They were both waiting for the aliens to return.

The waiting. Now that was the hardest part. They didn't know what the aliens had meant by the 'study' comment. McKay was right. If the aliens wanted them dead, they'd probably be dead, but lab animals were studied and then killed. Just because they didn't want him and McKay dead now, didn't guarantee anything for later.

Sheppard started working on notes for everything that had transpired from the time the energy pulse had disabled the Jumper's systems, to the present time. Somewhere along the way, he started to get sleepy, and felt his head bobbing towards his lap.

He jerked up, trying to stay awake, not wanting anything to happen if he were to fall asleep. What if they came when he was out, and decided to take McKay because he was sleeping?

Thinking of Rodney, he took a lazy look at the man, and found himself startled to see McKay's head draped over the laptop.

"Rodney?" John called. He wanted to see if McKay was all right, but he was so tired, he didn't think he could even move. He tried to call again, but his words came out slurred, "M'kay -" Just as the thought came to him that the tiredness wasn't natural, he had already lost the battle to stay conscious.

OoO

Sheppard came awake to the painful noises he remembered from the contact in the Jumper. He opened his eyes and tried to cover his ears, but found his wrists unable to move. Panicked, he began to realize he was strapped to a table, similar to the platform he'd woken on in the other room. He also realized he was naked.

_Breathe_, he whispered to himself. _Calm down. It's okay_. He repeated it at least five times, but it didn't help. No matter how many times he said it, it wasn't going to help, because there wasn't anything about this that was okay.

"Sheppard!"

The hissed name came from his left, and John twisted his head in the direction, only to see Rodney in a similar condition. There was a flash of embarrassment, relief, worry: embarrassment at lying here naked next to McKay because this wasn't exactly the standard locker-room situation, and relief because Rodney was okay, and worry that the end result of this predicament was going to be that neither one of them was okay.

"It's cold in here," John hissed back.

"I'm sure that's what you say to all the men you're strapped to examination tables with."

Sheppard's attempt at humor and distracting Rodney from the real things to be concerned about worked, at least for the time being, judging from the fact that Rodney managed a comeback instead of a whine full of their ultimate death and demise.

_We have said we mean no harm. There is no reason for fear._

_Yeah, buddy, and you're the ones sitting here naked and unable to move_, thought Sheppard angrily.

_It is necessary. We must study. We must learn. We have never encountered your kind before. We are afraid the process would cause injury._

"You getting this, McKay?"

"Unfortunately, yes. Especially the injury part."

Sheppard had to admire Rodney. He was staring stoically up at the ceiling. The room they were in was just like the other, except a little bigger. It was all white, and free of gel material. But, how did they get here? He remembered being very sleepy, and McKay…

"You drugged us!" accused Sheppard.

_It was for your comfort. The trip through our environment would have been uncomfortable. We wish no harm._

"This is harm." John tried to lift his arms to get his point across. "When we wish to learn from others in our culture, we ask."

_You ask the rat if you can cage it, and test it? You ask the cattle and the sheep?_

John looked over at McKay again, and saw him staring at him with a stark fear. Rat, cattle, sheep – all animals that were used on Earth. And seeing how these aliens were reading their minds, that meant they knew about Earth.

"We're not animals!" snapped Rodney. "We're human beings, and if you know so much, you ought to know the difference. For higher evolved beings, you're showing yourselves to be fairly unintelligent."

"Rodney," hissed Sheppard.

"What?" he retorted angrily. "They can read our minds, Colonel. If I'm thinking it, I might as well say it."

_We are aware of many things from your minds. You are not animals, however, the analogy is correct. To us, you are these rats. We do not wish harm. We will not experiment on you. We wish to learn. You are – intriguing. You humans. Fragile. Alone. Yet, you are here. How have you progressed so much when you are singular vessels? We seek to learn._

"You say you've never encountered our kind before, where do you come from?" asked Sheppard.

The aliens' speech did give him some small measure of comfort, and, for all intents and purposes, the aliens had never harmed them directly. But there were a lot of unknowns.

_We come from outside your realm. There is no position of reference in your minds. We are similar in that we explore. We are – curious. We wish to learn._

"You used singular in referring to us," spoke Rodney. "Does that mean your kind is a collective intelligence? The gel substance, does that contain your bodies?"

Sheppard recognized the scientist in McKay returning to the front. He found himself just as interested in the answers, but for a more pressing need, he wanted them released from the restraints, and given their clothes back.

_We are many. We are one. The gel is our essence. _

"We were swimming in brains?" Sheppard was dumbfounded, and slightly repulsed. "That was – your actual -" he couldn't finish. He didn't even know the word to verbalize, but seeing how they were telepathic anyway…

_CB1, do not be distressed. It is not as you believe. It is – our home. Like these jelly fish in the sea. It is the oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere of your world to us._

Sheppard tried to appear unruffled after his outburst. "I'm not distressed," he denied.

_This is the lying that we've seen in your minds?_

McKay chuckled openly. "And that would be a yes."

_Telepathy sucks_, thought Sheppard.

Out loud he asked, "So, do you have a name for yourselves. Calling you aliens is getting a little old. And, speaking of names, we prefer McKay and Sheppard, CB1 and CB2 is so seventies."

_Our language does not translate. You may call us Protectors. It is an appropriate description._

"So, we get our names back?"

_We've been taught that specimens must adjust to their new surroundings. Leaving all connections to their past lives helps this process. Your names are who you were, but now you are here. This is where you will live. We wish you to – adjust._

"Then why'd you give us our things from the ship? That's a contradiction, and besides, taking our names away won't help us adjust, it'll just piss us off." McKay finished ranting, and tried to scratch a spot on his nose.

_It is a contradiction, but we saw the need to ease subjects into their new lives. We will confer on the matter. The physical exams will commence. Please be still._

"Translation, shut-up," muttered McKay.

No kidding. Sheppard hoped to heck that physical exams would be a scan, because the physical exams that required nudity on Earth went in places he wasn't prepared for these aliens to go.

Before he could voice his worry, he felt a heat begin at his toes, and move up his body. If he'd ever had a reason to imagine a thick line of energy moving slowly up the length of the bed, that'd pretty much hit the nail on the head for what he was experiencing now. It wasn't painful; in fact, the warmth was pleasant, and he felt himself lulled into a drowsy state.

The return of the grating sounds pulled his mind unwillingly back awake. It sounded like broken bagpipes and pounding bad movie organ music mixed in with a little bit of an off-tune piano.

_CB2, you are ill._

John snorted. "I always knew something was a little off with you, Rodney."

"Ha ha ha, and for the aliens in the room, the ones without a bad sense of humor and infinite bad hair day, what do you mean, ill? I haven't felt good since you slimed us, what's changed?"

That brought Sheppard up short. Well, up short in the mental state, because he was still unable to move much at all. "You weren't feeling good, and you didn't tell me?" he spluttered. He'd thought McKay looked flushed, but chalked it up to the situation.

Rodney rolled his head towards Sheppard. "And your point being that it would've done what? Made you worry more? Right…"

"You forgot."

"Actually, yes. In between getting electrocuted by vacuum beings, gagged by foul food recreations, and gassed into unconsciousness -"

"I get it, Rodney." Ask for a spoon and you get a ladle.

_We fear it is a complication from being immersed in our environment. We tried to ensure all material was removed from your lungs. Humans are fragile. Some must have remained, and regardless of how small, illness has begun. We will treat illness._

Protectors, remember Sheppard. That's what they called themselves. Good, they could protect McKay and make him better. "Will it work?" he asked, just to make sure. Wouldn't want Rodney to go and die on him, leaving him alone in freaky 'The Borg Meets the Blob' world.

The restraints released suddenly on both men, and Sheppard jumped to his feet so fast his head spun. But then that left him in the awkward situation of standing naked in a room.

"Could we get some clothes, possibly?" He tried hard not to move his hands over his crotch and cover up like some self-conscious idiot. It was really really hard.

_Clothing is not necessary._

"Oh, believe me, they're necessary," Sheppard retorted quickly.

_Why?_

"Just give the man some pants. You know why we wear clothes. Don't pull that selective telepathy crap on us."

Way to go, McKay, cheered Sheppard to himself.

Two sets of white outfits shimmered into the room. They almost resembled scrubs, but as Sheppard hastily pulled them on, sans underwear but he wasn't bitching, he noticed the material was thicker. He had to think the resemblance was intentional. The Protectors knew their stuff with subliminal messages. This one was that they were at the mercy of these beings.

As McKay yanked his top over his head, Sheppard noticed Rodney was sweating. Once his head was free, John placed a hand against McKay's forehead and winced at the heat.

McKay met his worried gaze and didn't say anything.

"We could use a bathroom!" Sheppard called, dropping his hand and turning away from Rodney.

_Modifications to your quarters are taking place now. It will be when you return. For now, please take the medicine._

Another vacuum like being shimmered in the room, but this one was about twice as big as the other, and had robotic tube like appendages holding out cups.

Sheppard watched as McKay took one of the cups. Rodney sniffed it apprehensively, but didn't reel back in disgust so it must've been okay. He took a sip, and started spitting and gagging.

"That's awful, what is it, cleaning fluid? Alien chicken soup? What?" demanded McKay.

_Medicine. You will drink this, or be immersed in a therapy gel. It is your choice, but we believed you would prefer this option._

Rodney swallowed hard, and looked queasily at the cup.

"Just hold your nose, McKay. Big baby."

McKay looked like he wanted to shove it down John's throat, but he pinched his nose and drank it in one huge gulp. He threw the cup away, and started coughing and choking.

Concerned, Sheppard started to slap Rodney on the back, then realized how stupid that was, and instead tried to hold him upright while snapping at the robotic representation of the Protectors, "Help him!"

"I'm – okay," wheezed Rodney, pushing Sheppard off his arm.

McKay straightened, finally, and wiped at his face and mouth. "That was disgusting. For all I know, you could've just had me drink your sewage."

_We would not do that!_

The alien words sounded almost mortified.

"This will make him better, right," Sheppard asked skeptically. Didn't seem to him that any medicine that could almost make you choke to death would be very helpful.

"And, for the record, that second cup, not gonna happen," snarled McKay. "Once had better be enough."

_The second cup is for CB1._

"You will if you have to, Rodney." Sheppard had said that, but about the same time an evil grin was spreading across McKay's face, John's mind had processed the latest telepathic communication, and he took a step away from the robotic vacuum thing.

"Forget it," he said emphatically. "I'm not sick."

_The illness in CB2 is serious. If we failed to protect him, then it is possible we failed to protect CB1. We do not wish to fail. You will take the medicine or be immersed in the therapy gel. It is your choice, as he was given._

"Take the medicine, Colonel. Don't be a 'big baby'," mocked McKay.

"This is ridiculous!" he swore. "I'm not sick. It's not safe to take medicine when you're not sick. You read minds, look. They always say it makes you more susceptible if you do, to all kinds of nasty bugs, like flesh-eating bacteria, and that kind of stuff." John didn't even know why he was arguing so much against it, but from McKay's reaction, that stuff was bad, and this coming from someone who _liked_ MRE's!

_We know of what you speak, but that is not the case with our medicine and this illness. You will take the medicine. Now._

McKay leaned in and whispered, "Look Colonel, I know you've got issues with being ordered to do something you don't want to do, but I strongly suggest you buck up and drink it. I'd really rather you didn't disappear for this 'therapy'."

Issues with following orders? That was a low blow. He winced, but grabbed the cup so hard some of the contents sloshed onto his hand. Great. Less to drink anyway.

He tossed it back in one gulp, and felt the liquid burning a trail down his throat into his stomach. Oh, shit. He started coughing and spluttering, and now understood all too well why Rodney had tossed the cup and bent over.

He wheezed, and tried to catch his breath. Rodney tried to offer a supportive hand, but for some weird reason, McKay was listing sideways. Sheppard tried to grab him before he fell down, but found to his surprise that they both wound up on their backs.

The Protectors whispered in their minds. _Rest. When you wake, you will be in your quarters and feel better._

Dimly, Sheppard reached for McKay, and found Rodney's hand searching for his. They latched on, and watched as the ceiling blurred, and they lost their hold on consciousness.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Sorry for the longer than usual time between updates, but between the confounding part I was at in this chapter and working on my other fic, this one took a hit. But, resolved the issue with it, and finally got it done. Thanks for hanging in there with me!

Again, thanks to gaffer for being a fantastic and fast beta!

**Chapter Four**

When Sheppard woke again, they were back in their original room, but slightly remodeled. In the corner was a door, and he figured if you went through it, you'd find the bathroom.

Which was pretty good timing, because he really, really had to take care of some bodily functions.

John pushed himself wearily to his feet, feeling slow and drugged still, and moved to it, finding it was what he suspected, and getting some relief finally. There was a sink, and when he turned the faucets, instant water. How were they doing all of this? Creating things from nothing?

He splashed cold water, and wiped with a towel that was politely hanging to the left. This entire situation was getting freakier and freakier. It was almost like they were the guests from out of town, and their hosts were trying to be accommodating. The big difference was, of course, that guests could leave, and he and Rodney didn't have that luxury.

He left the small room, and headed back to where McKay was still out of it on his bed. The aliens had gone so far as to put a blanket on Rodney, and provide a pillow.

The scientist still seemed flushed, and his breathing was ragged. If the medicine was supposed to cure him, it didn't seem to be the fast-working kind.

"McKay," he called, shaking Rodney gently. "Wake up."

Rodney grunted, and rolled away.

Sheppard regarded McKay's back, before deciding maybe he should let him sleep. But, it was very – lonely – for lack of a better term, and Sheppard would've really liked the company about now.

He looked around the room, and found a new box and what looked like a refrigerator. The other box they'd opened with the disgusting food was gone. Huh. Guess they really were paying attention. And he couldn't see how that was a good thing. If the Protectors were keeping tabs, that meant that escape would be impossible. Or should he say, more impossible. Because the whole 'liquid environment' kind of screwed every escape plan.

His stomach rumbled. Sheppard really didn't feel like braving the food only to find it was inedible, but he might as well face the disappointment now if that were the case.

He opened the refrigerator. There was a jug of what looked suspiciously like milk, and some items that looked like yogurt and cheese. He poked past it, and thought the stuff in the back looked like some kind of lunch meat.

He pulled his head out of the fridge, and grabbed a yogurt. Spoon. Sheppard spun around, searching for something that would indicate they'd given them utensils and cups, plates, that kind of thing. They'd thought of everything so far, why not those items?

There was a stocky cabinet near the fridge, and he bet that was what he was looking for. Pulling open a door, he was rewarded with dishes stacked neatly, and a container with cutlery.

Even as he pulled a spoon free, John was beginning to wonder what kind of learning curve these aliens had. The first attempts at providing for them had been rudimentary at best. A bare room, inedible food, few personal items, and bedding that held as much appeal as a wet blanket.

Now the room had furniture, improved bedding, facilities – a veritable bachelor pad. Wasn't looking good for the temporariness of the situation.

And on that thought, as he cracked the top of the yogurt container, he figured it was time to check on McKay.

Taking a bite, he prodded Rodney's inert frame. "Wake up, sleeping beauty." The loneliness factor wasn't improving with the scientist's impression of Rip Van Winkle.

The yogurt was fruity, and Rodney was even worse than before.

Sheppard set the yogurt on the edge of McKay's bed, and placed a hand on his forehead. With dismay, and a strong bite of panic, he knew that Rodney's fever was worse.

Knowing that he was potentially asking the crocodile to help the hare, he shouted at the general air in the room, "My friend is getting worse! Help him!"

_We are aware. Therapy is being prepared._

The FBI could learn surveillance from these guys.

Just in case there was any doubt, "I'm fine, by the way!" Sheppard shouted. As much as the worry over Rodney, and the loneliness that was eating at him, the thought of being submerged in anything right now made him weak at the knees. The experience was terrifying, and though he didn't think they were trying to kill them anymore, he didn't want a repeat of the drowning sensations.

Looking down at McKay again, he could only hope that Rodney would stay unaware for what was to come.

Sheppard took his yogurt from Rodney's bed, and sat down on the floor, his back leaning against the platform bed. He sat and ate, looking the whole time for the robotic vacuum representation of the protectors to shimmer into existence and take Rodney away.

OoO

Either he fell asleep, or they drugged him again, because when he woke up he was in another room, with only a chair, and McKay was gone and so was the cup of yogurt. At least they'd listened to him about his health status – or at least, he assumed they had. What if they'd already done the therapy on him and he just didn't remember it?

_We did not!_

The voice, indignant again. Well, they could be indignant. That's what you get when you kidnap people, distrust and suspicion. What did they expect? Undying gratitude?

Let's see, 'Thanks for kidnapping us, we didn't want to return home to our friends, and our lives!'

_Is this the irony we see in your thoughts?_

"Not so much irony, as sarcasm," said Sheppard. He was giving aliens lessons in the subtleties of language usage.

_We see._

And now the voice wasn't indignant. More along the lines of – irritable.

"McKay?"

He refused to use CB2.

_The body is healing. The infection was persistent. He is in no discomfort._

Sheppard was torn between relief, and anger over the aliens complete disregard for privacy. These aliens had no compunction against invading his thoughts.

"Is there a reason I'm in this room?" he asked, instead of saying what he wanted to about how he felt with the reading his mind thing. What was the point, anyway, they knew what he was thinking.

_We wish to...talk with you. Learn about the others._

Sheppard frowned, others? Did the protectors refer to – stop it, John! He couldn't think things, couldn't let himself picture places and people. Purposefully, he imagined dolphins jumping in the ocean, and bears wading into cool mountain streams to catch salmon for dinner. Night skies, and wooded forests, football and fast planes.

_You've already given us glimpses of – Earth. Atlantis. Beings named Elizabeth, and Teyla, Ronon, and many others. When you sleep, your thoughts are unguarded. We mean no harm. Only to learn._

"What you're doing is wrong." Sheppard's knees were beginning to ache. He shifted his weight, leaning to his left.

_Sit._

It was petty, and pointless, but he stayed standing. "I only have your word that you won't take the information and do something with it. If the situation was reversed, would you be willing to trust me?"

_Does the dog trust the master? _

"Is that what we are to you? Dogs, to be trained to be loyal and happy? Is that why you're keeping us alive?"

_We…protect…Colonel Sheppard. Where we are from, we are protectors. It is our job. The ones we protect look to us with that devotion, and trust us in that manner. Perhaps it was a bad analogy._

Everything about this was a bad analogy. Sheppard sighed, and rubbed his hand through his hair. He still wasn't feeling recovered, and the suspicion that he'd been drugged was almost a certainty, because he felt sluggish and stupid.

"We aren't dogs. We have the ability to make our own decisions." He was groping for what to say. He wasn't Elizabeth, or Teyla. He didn't know how to handle other races with diplomacy, and make them see what he wanted them to see.

_But you make poor decisions. I can see it in your thoughts._

Unbidden, the image of a solar system exploding flashed in his mind before he squashed it away. Poor decisions. Another quicksilver flash, and he saw himself bullying his way out of voluntary quarantine. Poor decisions.

"But they're still our decisions to make," insisted Sheppard. "Good, bad, ugly – it's a thing called freedom."

_Dying Free is still dying._

Something finally caught up in his thoughts. They'd used his name. And it surprised him how much it meant. How inhuman CB1 felt, now that they gave him something back, something so simple as calling him Colonel Sheppard.

_Your request has been allowed. Please, sit. The discomfort in your legs will only worsen if you continue to be stubborn. We are not your enemy._

Sheppard was beginning to feel confused. They'd disabled his ship, effectively imprisoned them both, but they were caring for their human subject's needs, and helping McKay with medicine. Caring for them, protecting them.

He kept standing.

_You've not responded to our earlier statement. Dying free is still dying._

He hadn't. That was because he didn't know how to respond. "We believe it is the right thing to do. That some beliefs are more important than one man's life. We give our lives so that others can live free."

_But you don't want to die._

"Nobody wants to die." His thoughts fell back to his suicide run on the Jumper. He hadn't wanted to die, but the thought of his friends dying spurred his actions. If he could save them, it'd be worth it. He'd never considered himself a hero, but he'd known then what he needed to do, and he hadn't been afraid or reluctant. _So long, Rodney_ – that'd hurt. Because he hadn't had the time to say everything he wanted to.

_We can protect, so that none of you must die._

His back ached, his knees ached, and all he wanted to do was sit, but it'd be a cold day in hell before he took them up on the chair. It was almost as if sitting in the chair signified giving in. Taking them up on their offer of care and safety. He slunk to the wall, and dropped to the floor instead, bringing up his knees against his chest because the extra support felt good on his aching back.

"We don't want to be protected. Isn't there an option out clause? This isn't your galaxy, anyway. What are you doing – branching out? Bored? Needed to find more races to stifle into sheltered oblivion?"

That was pretty aggressive, and it almost surprised him, but this entire room had a feel of an interrogation cell. Shades of the candy coated razor blade.

_The recent disturbance drew us close to investigate. _

Disturbance? "What one would that be?" The only thing he could come up with was the debacle over the Ancients superweapon.

_It is as you believe. The explosion and loss of so much space called to us. Rodney McKay made a poor decision, and caused great destruction. It is why you must be protected._

Sheppard felt himself grow cold. The intentions were spelled out, in plain English, because he couldn't read minds and wouldn't know it if he recognized theirs anyway.

_This city – Atlantis. Your people did not begin there, why go, and risk the danger?_

John fought to picture pixies and Peter Pan, and Winnie the Pooh. Disney characters. To infinity and beyond. Because if they knew the location of Atlantis, they'd already be there.

"Did you know that the meaning of life is forty-two?"

_Colonel Sheppard, we read minds, do you really think we do not know the information you seek to protect?_

The voice sounded impatient, parental, annoyed – and that was exactly what he thought.

The Great Space Coaster, sing a song of sixpence, pocket full of rye, four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie – "When will Rodney be out of this therapy, anyway?"

_Soon. When will you stop trying to block us?_

Not so soon, he thought grumpily. Ferris wheels. "I like fast things," he said inanely.

_You've let enough through before that this really is unnecessary. How can we convince you we mean no harm?_

"You want to protect us? Like children from the scary world outside?" asked John.

_Yes._

"Then never. Read my mind." And Sheppard thought loudly, _the road to hell is paved with good intentions._ _Figure that out_.

And he started singing Christmas songs, and ignoring the voice directed at him to stop being stubborn.

OoO

John wasn't sure how much time had passed, but they left him singing to himself. Soon, he grew stiff and tired, and let his head drop to his knees. He was cold, and he found himself wishing to return to the other room, with the bed and blankets, and pillows – and Rodney.

And suddenly the chill running through him wasn't from the temperature. These aliens were good. Very good. He wrapped his arms tighter together and rocked a little trying to generate some body heat.

_If you would simply cooperate, we will return you. The other, Rodney McKay, is back in your rooms and awake. He wishes you to return._

_Nice touch_, thought Sheppard. "But no dice," he finished out loud.

_We mean no –_

"Then take me back to McKay."

_No. You must learn cooperation. In order for you to accept your situation, and understand your new position, this lesson must be learned._

Sheppard grew angry again. "So, what, this is some kind of obedience training – you not only wish to protect, but have us heel and sit on command?" The dog references seemed to be what they liked, so he'd stick with that, bad analogy notwithstanding, but he wanted to be clear how he viewed their actions.

_You do not like that comparison – parent to child, perhaps?_

"You're not my mother."

McKay, please don't be going through this – not only did he fear for Rodney's health, but Rodney's ability to keep his mouth shut.

_Rodney McKay converses with us. He is not harmed. He is doing well. He warned us of your stubbornness. We regretted telling him that he will continue to be alone, until you cooperate. This lesson must be learned. We will allow you to return if you merely sit in the chair, would that be fair? Simply sit, and you will have done well enough to return to your other. It is a small thing, to sit in a chair, yet we know small steps are required in the beginning._

It was a small thing to sit in a chair. But it was also everything.

Sheppard stood up, and walked over to stand next to it. It was a simple wooden chair. No cushions, no carving, no elaboration except it looked like it was stained. And all he had to do was sit, and they said he'd get to go back to the room with Rodney.

He sat.

If all that was at stake was his life, he would've resisted. If the only thing at risk was who he was, the core of John Sheppard, he would've resisted for that man. But it wasn't the only thing. Rodney McKay was somewhere in this ship, waiting for him, and being told god knows what about Sheppard, and if the aliens thought he was naïve enough to believe what they said about McKay, they needed to try and go protect a few more species before attempting humans – because a big mouth McKay might be, but he was also incredibly smart.

And he knew they were listening.

John's eyes grew heavy, and he knew they were doing it again, getting him ready to be moved about. They'd said the drugs were for their benefit, but the doubt that it was more for control sneaked into his thoughts before he was completely dragged under into dreamless unconsciousness.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

**AN:** Thanks for the reviews, it really does keep me going. This story is one of those 'not so easy' to write stories, and since Not the Daddy is one of those fics that just flows from nowhere, progress on this fic has been slow. I've never left a story unfinished so no panicking allowed, and normally I don't let more than week go between updates so I'm very sorry for the big gap, between my husband's birthday and 'The Big Event' in Not the Daddy, I got off schedule more than normal. Someone pegged what this fic is all about. It's about pyschological duress from many things. Different environment, different aliens, different agendas - and though it seems impossible, the boys will get out! Thanks again to my beta gaffer! Any mistakes are mine, as I tend to tweak even after sending it off to her.**  
**

**Chapter Five**

Sheppard was dreaming. He was on a sailboat, one of those small wooden skiffs that rode low to the water's surface, and he was riding the ocean waves, listening to the gulls squawk in the surf. The sun had painted a reddish orange canvas across the sky, and as he drifted with his feet hanging over the side, brushing against the water, he thought he could stay here forever.

He wasn't sure where else he had to be, but this was as good as it gets.

Yet – something was missing.

And then his boat started to rock, from side to side, and he pulled his feet in, and tried to struggle up, to latch on to the boom.

John's eyes snapped open. A dream. It'd just been a dream.

"Sheppard?" McKay leaned over John's face, and frowned. "Please tell me you're awake."

He groaned, and rolled away from Rodney. "I wish I wasn't." The dream had been preferable. "Tell me you're better," he added.

"If you're awake, I'm better," McKay replied.

Sheppard heard him move away, and as John got unsteadily to his feet, and groggily looked around, he watched as McKay headed to the fridge and pull out what looked suspiciously like an iced coffee. What, the aliens had figured out Starbucks? This was nuts –

"If that's a café mocha, I want one." You know that saying, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em – he wasn't going to join any alien protectorate, but nothing said he couldn't enjoy the coffee. God knows, at least it'd help shake off the grogginess.

Rodney opened the door, pulled another out, and tossed it to him. "Remarkably tasty," he said, pulling the tab on his own. "I had five waiting for you to come back."

Sheppard's eyes widened. Five? "About that, what happened to you?"

"Long detailed panicked story, or short, succinct and without the 'oh my god, I'm going to die' part?" McKay asked, taking a long gulp, as if it were courage in a bottle.

"Minus the hysterics would be good," John said. He drifted close to McKay, and noticed another new addition. Chairs and a table. All that was missing was a gaudy disco ball and fancy media system, and the bachelor pad would be complete. If you were into that kind of thing. Sheppard preferred understated and simple. "Because we've got problems."

Rodney polished off the coffee, and tossed the trash in the can provided – that was new also.

"I woke up in what I can only assume was this therapy gel they refer to, panicked for the remainder of my being awake, thought I'd had a stroke, woke up here, you were gone, aliens tried to assure me you were fine, just refusing to play nicely, and when I told them you tended to do that when people didn't use their manners, they got in a huff and I didn't hear anything until you came rising up out of the floor in a big tube. The tube opened, and the aliens said something about 'catch', and you started to topple out. That's it."

"Catch?" repeated Sheppard. "Did you?"

"What?" asked McKay, pulling his head back from the fridge where he'd gone to poke for more food, apparently. Some people got queasy when they were nervous, Rodney got hungry.

"Catch me?" elaborated Sheppard. "Did you catch me?"

McKay waved a dismissing hand his way. "Of course I did, if I hadn't, you would've had a broken nose. Think, Colonel. I know you still can."

"You didn't tell them anything?'

Pulling out a yogurt, he looked at Sheppard in disbelief. "Of course not, why do you always think I'm a step behind you? If anyone slipped, it was you, because you seemed to keep forgetting about the telepathy issue."

"They weren't exactly trying to play nice with me, Rodney," he said softly. "I think I got the telepathy thing. And besides, remember the Genii – you tend to ramble in tense situations."

McKay and Sheppard had this thing going on. It was like the anti-friendship, but it was really a depth of real affection, and the sudden seriousness in John's words had a chilling affect on McKay.

"What'd they do?" Rodney propped in a chair and threw his feet on the table. His attitude said relaxed, but the underlying tone said he was very worried. He popped the lid on the yogurt, took a tentative sniff, and recoiled, before throwing it in the trash can with the other refuse.

Sheppard noticed he didn't comment on the Genii thing. Rodney had practically given them the key to building atomic bombs while they were being held at gunpoint.

"Training," explained Sheppard. "I woke up in a room alone, and they did their best impression of a cold day in hell…" he tried to tone down his anxiety before continuing, "anyway, it was all a little too convenient that I was suddenly isolated from all the little treats they'd given us here, and the conversations we had – well, let's just say they tried to do a psychology experiment on me." He didn't go into descriptions over the exact conversations. "Ultimately, they gathered I was a stubborn case, and told me if I sat when asked, and was a good boy, I'd get to come back and talk to you. They told me you were worried."

"I was worried," admitted Rodney. He looked it, too. "But I didn't know they were doing that. I can't figure these aliens out. One moment they're caring, the next, they're knocking us out and dragging us all through the ship, and now this – but it does sound like conditioned response training. Just at a higher level. You're put in a room and rewarded for good behavior by getting to go back where you want to go. Soon, you do what they want just to get out of there, and back here."

Sheppard shuddered, because that was exactly how the conversation had gone with the Protectors. "At least they didn't put any choke collars on us," he muttered, rubbing a hand around his throat at the thought.

"We're in trouble," stated Rodney.

They were definitely in trouble, and Sheppard didn't know how they were going to find a way out of this one. The only thing that made it better, was that the rest of his team was safe.

The aliens didn't want to kill them, he'd accepted that much, but induced submission – it wasn't exactly the life he had in mind. And seeing how he doubted McKay was going to go along with it either, he had to wonder what these aliens had in mind when they refused to give.

_Training will progress. Stubborness is dealt with, in time._

"We might be more cooperative if you guaranteed us some privacy," Sheppard shouted.

"As if yelling makes them snoop in your mind less?" McKay said sarcastically.

"Well it makes me feel better!"

_Would you like some exercise, we have prepared a room for this purpose._

Now Rodney really groaned. "Health-conscious captors, there's a first. No, I don't want to exercise. Running is bad for your health. Ruins the knees, the hips, all the major joints you need in your old age."

Ordinarily, this wasn't something Sheppard would agree with, but the last thing he wanted to do was accept anything else from these Protectors.

"Forget it, we're fine."

_Really...turning down activities you would enjoy, merely because we are providing it, is as you say, juvenile._

How these voices were able to insert emotional currents still surprised John. The aliens were clearly amused at their pithy attempts to resist, but also parentally stern. He almost figured they'd send them to this so-called exercise room just because.

"Seeing how you read minds, you know we won't go along with your scheme of 'protect the little humans'," McKay said. "And for posterity, I don't enjoy exercise. If you want to entice me, you've got to do better than that. Really, we're more trouble than we're worth, so you might as well rid yourselves now of a lot of trouble."

No sooner than Rodney finished, then he backpedaled. "Did I say rid – I meant rid in the sense of 'let us go', not rid, as in 'kill and dump out the nearest airlock', just so we're clear on that."

Sheppard sighed. "Good clarification there, McKay."

_We agree that you two present a challenge, but we find the idea…stimulating. We've prepared a training plan to create acceptance. The training will begin momentarily._

"You're wasting your time," reiterated Sheppard. "I've been trying to train McKay for over a year, and have gotten nowhere."

Sheppard caught McKay's glance, and smiled pleasantly. Rodney bobbed his head to the side, feigning amusement.

But both men's attention was soon pulled to the center of the room. The vacuum-like being that they'd seen earlier, the large one, shimmered into the air, and coalesced.

_This is Trainer One. Its primary duty is to work directly with you both, to help gain acceptance and cooperation. The faster you achieve these states, the easier it will be for both._

Why did John not like the sound of that. Looking over at Rodney, he noticed McKay was feeling the same.

"Wasting your time!" he tried again, with a small amount of desperation.

_We have, as you say, all the time in the world._

Trainer One moved towards them, and stopped a couple feet away. "Please move to the far right wall," it ordered.

The voice was mechanical, precise. And Sheppard looked over at McKay and nodded for him to do it. He didn't doubt that Trainer One had some tools up its…chassis.

They shuffled against the wall, and waited. T-1 produced a chocolate candy and ejected it at them. Then another.

McKay's mouth dropped open. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me. Remember, not mice!"

Sheppard almost laughed. Almost. He reached for it, but Rodney slapped his hand.

"What's that for?" he yelped. "Chocolate is good. If they want to reward us for moving across a room, hey, it's a small thing."

"Drugs, Sheppard, or have you completely forgotten your Rambo-training?"

"They're not gonna drug us. They've done it more than a few times, and it wasn't by having us eat a piece of chocolate!"

Of course, he'd never admit it, but McKay was probably right. But, then again, all of the food could be drugged and they didn't really have a say in not eating. Eventually they'd have to eat or drink – and they had been.

"Congratulations on following directions, unit Sheppard and unit McKay. Now, run to the end of the room, please."

T-1 had moved out of the way, and waited patiently.

"We're not really going to do this," hissed McKay.

Sheppard didn't know. He was kind of playing this thing from the hip. It wasn't like this had ever come up in the training manuals. 'And by the way, if you ever find yourself captured by aliens intent in training you to be docile little humans, make sure that you disobey and disrupt at every possible opportunity' or 'make sure you go along and give them a misplaced sense of security'.

He leaned towards Rodney. "I don't know, Rodney. What do you suggest?"

McKay scowled, but then he sat down. He folded his legs, and sat Indian style, and stared defiantly at the robot. "No," he said.

"I said 'what do you suggest' not 'do it'!" disgruntled, Sheppard looked at the robot. The body was round, cylindrical – tall, and on top was a small hub. The arms were hoses and though he'd thought the vacuum analogy good, it was more along the lines of a 'Danger, Will Robinson – Danger' robot. Something out of a cheesy science fiction show.

The hub was opaque, and at McKay's decision to sit, the hub sparked a few red lights inside, like a computer interpreting data.

"I'm not anybody's pet," hissed Rodney. "Not even misguided aliens intent on reenacting Pavlov's experiment in space."

Sheppard had always known McKay had a defiant spirit, and isn't it a bitch when things don't work out like we planned, because McKay was suddenly gaping at the robot, and when Sheppard looked away from Rodney, he knew why. It was gliding towards them, right hose out like a lance in a jousting contest. The chilling mechanical words told John that McKay had every right to gape.

"Disobedience is not tolerated, unit McKay and unit Sheppard."

"What'd I do?" Sheppard spoke before thinking. It wasn't that he meant to draw a line in the sand between him and McKay, and step to the side showing who was clearly the instigator, but since he hadn't been on the same page with Rodney's little Boston Tea Party, he was a little miffed about it.

"Unit Sheppard failed to run, as did unit McKay. Disobedience is not tolerated."

T-1 was now an arm's length away, and out of the right arm hose that was pointing at them, a small device emerged. It kind of resembled one of those mini guns that people got for a gag gift, you know, the ones that were only cigar lighters, but somehow Sheppard didn't think this was a gag lighter.

John didn't hesitate; he shoved McKay to the side and ordered, "Go!" He split the other direction, and knew Rodney was scrambling to his feet and going the other way.

So, it surprised him, when he felt an electric current course through his body, and bring him to his knees. It was enough to be painful, but the effect wore off quickly. The weapon must have wide dispersal. John stayed down on his knees, but straightened his torso to look for Rodney and find out where T-1 was.

McKay was on the ground, but didn't look any worse than Sheppard felt. He did mumble to himself, "Brilliant idea, make the nice robot mad so he can SHOCK you." Rodney rolled towards John. "Remind me when we get back to dismantle the robot I was working on."

Sheppard raised an eyebrow and asked, "You were working on a robot?"

"A prototype only, to go through the gate instead of a MALP," McKay explained, still staying flat on his back. "More maneuverability and options."

T-1 lumbered between the two and the hose arm was lowered, the shock gun back where it had been before. "Units will comply with orders. Please return to the far wall."

There comes a time when you have to decide whether to stand, or to run. Sheppard's eyes met McKay's, and he realized that McKay had been right. This was the time to stand. If they ran now, later resistance down the road would only seem like a bump in their training to the aliens. If they stood in the beginning, then there was a chance the Protectors would realize they weren't going to go along with the program.

Slowly, Sheppard shook his head. Out loud he said, "We're not going to cooperate. There's a conundrum for you to figure out. You want to protect, but you hurt us. Being here on this ship has caused us harm. If we don't do as you say, will you keep shocking us, causing more harm? You'll be failing to protect by your own actions!"

_Do you not have to cause discomfort when training a child in the ways of right and wrong?_

"We don't electrocute our children!" snapped Rodney.

_The shock is mild, as you both are aware. Over time, it is a useful training tool. Your indignation comes from resistance, and that is our goal, to reduce resistance. A child believes in their decisions until shown different. Your race is a child, and Rodney McKay's actions - we see a careless child breaking things which he has no right to have touched. Like your children, we will train and guide, and protect, until such time arrives where you may be set free._

"We won't cooperate," Sheppard vowed. He dropped to his butt, and sat.

McKay copied the motion.

T-1 stopped, and John saw the red lights flashing in the hub. The robot sat that way, communicating with the unseen aliens for what felt like minutes, and Sheppard wished something would happen. When it finally did, he didn't know whether to be relieved or worried. The robot whirred to life, and moved to the middle of the room, where it shimmered into non-existence, though John knew it'd merely been recalled to wherever it went when it wasn't here.

_We will contemplate your training. _

It was the only communication, and yet, it chilled Sheppard to the bone, and when he looked again at McKay, he knew Rodney was feeling the same.

He got up, and headed towards Rodney. "Don't suppose they'd give up yet," he murmured.

"Not likely, I get the impression they wouldn't be the permissive type."

Sheppard chuckled harshly. "Our luck, to get picked up by the universe's strictest parents."

"They're fanatics, Sheppard." Rodney dusted his pants and headed for the sink. "Seriously, you can't reason with thinking like this – I don't know what grand escape you've got planned, but we can't let them find out how to get anywhere near Atlantis, or Earth."

"So, think pink bunny slippers?"

McKay paused in picking up a washcloth. "I was thinking more along the lines of sexy blondes, but whatever works for you." He wiped his face and looked at John puzzled. "You really have pink bunny slippers?"

"No, I don't have pink bunny slippers," exasperated, Sheppard headed to the fridge. Nervous eating might be worth giving a try. "It was an expression, Rodney – to think anything but what we don't want to think. Just like I know you don't have any sexy blondes tucked away somewhere."

"I might," McKay said defensively. He dropped the rag on the edge of the sink, and leaned in over Sheppard's shoulder, pointing at the yogurt, "Give me one of those, would you?"

Sheppard glared over his shoulder, but pulled the item out and tossed it to McKay, before grabbing one for himself, and moving to one of the beds to sit. "Do you think we should be worried about what's next?"

Rodney shrugged, pulling the spoon from his mouth and swallowing. "Worry? I think that's an understatement." He swirled his yogurt a few times before setting it aside. "So, really, what's the grand escape plan?"

John frowned at the berry fruit in the cup. He poked it with his spoon, and wondered why McKay had stopped eating his. That was the second one he'd wasted. Of course, their fixation on the yogurt was to take their mind off the fact that he didn't have a grand escape plan.

"The grand escape plan is not looking so good," he admitted. "Why aren't you eating?"

"It's blueberry. I hate blueberry." McKay looked at the ceiling and said loudly. "You need to learn about labels, and for the record, I'm allergic to citrus!"

Sheppard muffled a laugh, and then noticed that his head felt a little fuzzy when he moved. He stopped and remained motionless, and still felt funny. "Rodney?" His voice came out shaky and uncertain.

McKay was looking at him, concerned, and Sheppard saw him standing and moving towards him, but John was already slumping down. He was so dizzy –

He fought to keep his eyes open. McKay took another step, and faltered. John tried to grab for him, but missed, and Rodney fell just out of his reach. He knew his eyes were rolling back in his head and mumbled, "I feel awful."

Just as he lost consciousness, he heard the aliens whisper, _We've made our decision. Training separately will begin. Rewards will be to spend time with one another. Say goodbye._

John tried to swallow back the bile from the vertigo, and couldn't force words between his gritted teeth, but as he fell into the blackness, he heard Rodney grunt, "Sheppard -"

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

It was dark, and it was cold. Those were the two things John became aware of first – then, he became aware of how crappy he felt. The last thing he remembered, was falling to the ground…the Protectors had drugged them again, for easier movement, or for something else.

He sighed, and uncurled, rolling on to his back in what he knew was an empty room. Or maybe there was a chair. It was so dark, he couldn't see.

They had discovered their weakness. The old saying 'united we stand, divided we fall' was apt for a reason…it was true. Together, he and McKay could've resisted for a very long time. Apart – would either one last?

Judging from the conditions he was in, they had taken off the gloves for good. John felt tired, cold, hungry, and still slightly fuzzy from the drugs. He didn't feel up to coping, and that was their intent.

_Good morning._

Was it morning? Since they'd been captured, he had lost all track of time. It didn't matter. He refused to respond.

The shock that coursed through his body startled him, and he gasped from the surprise, more than pain. It was the same as when T-1 had shot him and McKay.

"What was that for?" he shouted angrily. Sheppard was still on his back, but now he rolled to his side, and peered into the darkness. He'd assumed he was alone – but something had shot him with the shock gun.

_When you are addressed, you will respond. We told you that training would begin. This is part of the training. You have kept Trainer One, the trainer will remain with you until training is complete. Unit McKay has been assigned a new trainer._

McKay. Thinking of Rodney, alone in a cell like his, being shocked by an unseen robot – "This won't work," he vowed. But it sounded tentative even to his ears. "At any rate, you'll get two pesky humans, but you won't get our home – the rest of our people."

And savagely he thrust images of pink bunny slippers to the front of his mind.

_A beginning is a beginning. Two now, but when you are properly trained and accept that humans need protecting, then you will give up the locations we desire. Our goal will be attained, regardless of the path we had to take to get there._

"Then my goal is to convince you that we don't need protecting."

Possible – maybe…probably not. But he had to try, and just maybe it'd give him something to work towards while he was stranded in this room. There had been a chair before – "Any furniture this time?" he asked the air. He knew they were listening…and he had a sixth sense of being watched that let him know his old buddy T-1 was very near.

The whole 'can't see in the dark' was their advantage, and they were using it well. Despite his attempts at not looking into the shadows, and not jumping at every sound and touch of his body against the floor, he could still imagine all kinds of horrors. Spiders and rats, and any kind of things just lurking, ready to pounce…intentionally, he closed his eyes and tried to wrap himself up tightly, knees to his chest, only his butt and feet touching the floor.

_In order to be given a thing, you must first earn the privilege. Do you wish something?_

Oh, god, he did. God help him, he'd give almost anything for light. To be able to see and know where the robot was waiting – to be able to see and verify there wasn't anything else in the room with him.

"No," he said, instead of begging like he wanted to do. "I'm fine."

_Your thoughts say otherwise, but no matter. Do you deny the actions of your friend unit McKay? His willful destruction of the solar system in question, the planet of Doranda included, was not without issue with you. We know this was an area of – distrust between you and this unit._

His feelings over what happened with McKay were what they were. Now, though, in the face of the Protector's claims, they were damning. "And you haven't ever made mistakes?" John asked them, doubtful, deciding that instead of giving them what they wanted, he'd try to engage them in discussing their own history. "You can't tell me you were always this advanced Protectorate society. What were your roots? Did you start out fighting one another, wars – there had to be something to develop this Protector mindset?"

He'd been thinking on it, and it made sense. A violent history bred a desire for peace – sometimes at all cost.

_Our history is not the topic of discussion. The issue of unit McKay's actions, and your response, is._

The warning was clear, and yet, he couldn't bring himself to say what they wanted to say. Loyalty to Rodney, knowledge that it was what they wanted, and knowing that a shock was going to follow soon and he wouldn't even know from which direction it came from. He'd kept his eyes shut, but now he opened them, and stared up, but how could he even be sure it was up? It didn't matter. "No."

When the shock came, he couldn't even say from where, but it hurt, and because he had more of a feeling for his situation, it seemed to hurt more than before…

OoO

Consciousness returned reluctantly to McKay, and when it did, he hoped he'd find Sheppard nearby – that this was all a bad dream, and they'd get up, dust off, and return home…but as the thought of home flashed in his mind he squashed it quickly by putting up an image of Carter in the forefront, and focusing on her features. Carter…if Carter were here, how would she get them out of this?

SG-1 had managed to escape time and time again, surely she'd think fast and loose, and they'd escape to save the day – but Carter wasn't here, and right now, neither was Sheppard. He was alone, and the room was cold and dark, and more than anything he wanted to be back with John.

"I'm not good at this kind of thing," he said. Rodney knew the aliens were there. He'd tried to tell John that every thought was known, but they couldn't read minds, so much as know your thoughts, so if you kept certain thoughts away, then you were good – how often did McKay keep thoughts from himself though?

The answer was not very often. His mind was on overdrive, shifting from one subject to the next, drifting from this problem to that, and a solution would pop in and he'd rush off to write it down, only to have another thought occur.

And now he had to train his thoughts. Think of Carter, and Sheppard's pink bunny slippers…groaning, McKay wished like anything that the aliens hadn't separated them.

It was his fault. His idea. He'd instigated the rebellion, and now John was somewhere else, and he was alone.

_All you must do is what we ask, unit McKay. Training does not have to be difficult. You're new trainer is in the room with you, Trainer Two. Do you wish for anything?_

"Lights," Rodney called, his voice cracking from the instinctive fear at not being able to see. "Lights would be good."

The room was flooded, and the glare sent his eyes snapping shut in reflexive action. Soon enough, his eyes adjusted, and he looked around at the room. It was bare, all except one lone chair, and it must've been what they'd given Sheppard before, and with a chill that went to his bone, he remembered how John's features had grown serious and taut when he'd told McKay about the room.

_You are being reasonable. That is good. It is a start. Would you admit that humans can be unreasonable?_

"No more than you," Rodney argued. "You captured us, and you are the ones demanding we silently fall in line. All we want is to be put back in space, and on our way – who's being more unreasonable? You want total control, we only want our freedom!"

_What you want is the ability to continue careening through space, destroying in your ignorance._

McKay realized for the first time that the robot, a different one, this one taller and skinnier, was coming closer, and it's right arm had revealed one of those shock guns that had been used by the other robot on he and Sheppard earlier.

But no one ever said Rodney knew when to keep his mouth shut. "You're the one who's ignorant. Mistakes are part of the growth process. Without them, a society will stagnate, cave in upon itself, and decay from the inside out. Is that what's happened to your own? Maybe that's why you are subduing others, like true tyrannical despots?"

The shock didn't even surprise him when it came, but he yelped anyway. He rolled away and shouted, "Is that your answer when people don't go along? You shock them, and keep shocking them until they give in and do what you want? You're nothing more than a society of bullies – not protectors!" McKay put every ounce of scorn he had into his words.

Another shock, this one slightly harder, and he kept his mouth shut, but the muscles in his jaw worked furiously against the effort.

_Arrogance is unbecoming. Misbehavior will be punished, obedience, rewarded. You wish to see unit Sheppard, then obey. Answer when addressed. Refrain from disparaging comments._

How much Rodney wanted to see Sheppard again – but he knew that John wouldn't cooperate anymore than he should. Which meant, how would they work out that reward system? "You're flawed," he snorted, smiling to himself in a fit of not quite insanity, but not exactly sanity, either, "even if I do as you want, Sheppard won't, and you can't reward one of us only. If you reward me, and let me see him, you'll be rewarding him, but he won't have deserved it – which means, you're lying. I won't get to see him as a reward, it'll be when you want us to see each other, part of your mental conditioning."

_This is an example of the instability for which you must be protected from yourselves. It is your reasoning that is flawed. A reward to one must be what they see as a reward. If we tell you it is your reward – then it is so. If we do not say it is a reward, then it is simply our act of benevolence, and not reward. The one who earns the reward, will be given that reward, the one who doesn't, will receive only that which we decide to give, and that is not reward so much as being made to go and do as we deem. That is not reward. There is no choice in the one, while in the other, there is only choice._

Rodney pushed a hand against his forehead. Normally he'd take up the challenge of talking circles around their captors, but his mind was still sluggish from being drugged. "Just stop – stop it. That doesn't make any sense. To be together is the reward we were given, you said it before you separated us. If you put us together and only one of us has earned it, you are rewarding both of us, no matter how you walk around it, it is what it is."

The robot pulled the trigger.

McKay curled from the pain, and wished he'd learn to keep his mouth shut – but then again, did it matter, because all he had to do was think it, anyway, and only one thing would shut off McKay's thoughts – death. And Rodney didn't want to die…

OoO

The laughter bubbled up through John's cracked lips. "Resistance is futile," he repeated the thought aloud. How long had it been since he'd had a drink, or slept? A body could go three days without drinking – but it hadn't been three days. His body shook again at the thought of the aliens shaping into a cube. Good thing McKay had made him watch the show. He would never have gotten the joke. Then again, there wasn't anyone else but him to make the joke…

_It has not even been one of your twenty-four hour days. This – _the voice paused – _is unnecessary. Isn't it proof of your need to be protected, that you would choose to endure such as this in the foolhardy attempt at resisting only care to be given. That is all we want to do, unit Sheppard, to care – to protect. Why do you not let us care for you?_

It hadn't even been a day? John felt the cold wall against his back – at some point he'd moved in the darkness till he'd touched solidness – and wondered if it were possible. It felt like he'd been in here a week, alone, in the dark, and cold. His body shivered, and he tried unsuccessfully to wrap himself tighter.

"You're lying," he accused. They had to be. It had to have been more than a day.

Fatigue, or anger – whatever the cause, he'd forgotten he wasn't allowed to be 'disparaging' as they called it. The shock that hit reminded him, however.

_We do not lie. Are you ready to talk about unit McKay? A simple thing, and you will be given comforts again. Lights, blankets, food and drink – a visit with your friend._

What was it with them – why were they so obsessed in getting him to talk about Rodney? Did it really matter? Desperately, John searched in himself, trying to find a way that he could do what they wanted without giving in. Was talking about Rodney going against maintaining who he was? If he gave in now, would he give in later to something bigger?

God, he didn't know. The line on where to stand, and where to run, was blurred by tiredness, cold, and thirst. What had seemed so solid now seemed like quicksand.

And even as he knew the answer, he let out a groan because of it. He couldn't give…it was time to stand, it was the slippery slope, and if he gave now, what would hold him next time?

"I can't," he said wearily. And he wished with all of his being that he could. If not only for him, but for Rodney. So that he could see McKay again, and make sure he was still alive. To let Rodney know that he was still alive, also. "I'm not gonna quit, Rodney. I won't quit," he muttered.

_He means much to you._

"Yes." John answered without thought.

The lights powered up, sending spikes of pain shooting through his head. Grimacing, Sheppard hid his face in his arms. The lights – he'd answered. He'd done it without even realizing. "No!" he shouted. As much as he wanted the lights, he didn't, because it was a slap in the face that he'd given the aliens something they wanted. "I take it back, shut the lights off." But he knew they wouldn't, and it was pointless to shout. He'd resisted so long, and held out, and one careless moment, he lost the edge he'd so painstakingly gained.

_If we shut the lights off, we'd be doing as you asked, and in order to earn that right, you must cooperate more. Explain your feelings about unit McKay's mistake with the Arcturus weapon?_

Rolling over to his knees, and staggering to his feet, Sheppard felt sick. They had the name of the weapon, and they'd gotten it from him – his thoughts. He hadn't controlled it enough, and the name had popped in unwelcome, and too long. The aliens were mining data, and he had to be careful, but how could he be careful when he could barely concentrate?

"It was a mistake! You just said it yourself," shouted Sheppard, pushing the heels of his hands against his sore eyes.

The lights clicked off. He froze.

_You asked for the lights to be turned back off. You responded to us, so we rewarded you with your request._

No…nonono…backing up, Sheppard felt the wall again. He dropped, wrapping himself into the tight ball. Don't talk, don't talk, don't talk…he repeated it over and over again, chanting to keep himself from thinking or saying anything he didn't want to again…

OoO

_Do you deny your actions cost the lives of one of your own people, a man you were responsible for, and did it not cost a solar system over half of it's planets and satellites?_

Rodney stood from the chair, and paced, the lights bright in his eyes, and he suddenly wished for the darkness again. "It wasn't like that!" he protested. "We had to find a way to defend ourselves from the wraith. You read minds, look, see what the wraith are – what would you do? You say you protect, it's what we do also, we protect each other, and try to protect others from the wraith. You know I'm telling the truth!"

_But you are a child. Children do not protect! Children make mistakes, and harm others in doing so, and must be protected until they are ready. Did you know that the fourth planet from Doranda was inhabited?_

It wasn't! The solar system was devoid of life, uninhabited, their research vessels had shown it. "You're lying," he accused, forgetting himself, and the stunning shock ran rampant across his nerves.

_We do not lie._

All McKay could think was there wasn't even a warning to watch his mouth.

"Our surveys showed the system was abandoned, uninhabited." It was all he could say when he'd recovered from the shock.

_Your surveys were wrong. The beings were not like yours. Not carbon based, but that did not make them any less alive than you._

They didn't lie – but what if they did? What if they were lying now, to make him feel guilt over his mistake? What if…what if all the aliens were doing was a lie? What if they really weren't protectors, and this was all a sham by the wraith to find out Earth's location? They really hadn't seen anything, and the wraith were telepathic…

_We are not wraith._

The voice dripped self-righteous indignation. So what, McKay was indignant also. Who was the one that had been kidnapped, and drugged, and stuck in gel, and separated from the only other being in the ship that he could find comfort in?

"You don't like the analogy?" he shouted to the ceiling. "Tough. If the shoe fits…"

The shock didn't take him by surprise this time. But it did hurt, a lot. It took him to his knees, and he glared over at the robot that had introduced himself as Trainer Two, T-2. McKay had joked about the new and improved model, and maybe he was right. It sure seemed to learn fast how he moved, anticipating and cutting him off even as he tried to pace around farther around the perimeter of his room.

_It has been a while since you've had sleep, and water – would you like these privileges?_

Privileges? Those were needs, and if denied too long, he'd die. Sheppard would die. "You said you protect, that you wouldn't harm us, but without any sleep or food, we'll die."

_We will not let harm come to the units, but alive does not mean comfortable. You understand what we mean._

He nodded miserably. "I do," he answered, almost unintentionally. He found his way back to the chair, and dropped into it. Because, he truly did. And his thoughts wound back to the room with the two beds, chairs, and tables, and food – coffee, and blankets, pillows and Sheppard – John had been there, and would be again, if they returned him to the room. They'd promised that much, right?

But he wouldn't be able to look John in the face if he gave in. How could he last? Rodney McKay wasn't cut out for this crap, and even now, he knew he was losing grips with what he should and shouldn't do, or say.

_Admit the need for rest, and water – it's a simple thing. It's one very small thing. _

Rodney knew it wasn't small, though. He knew it was as big as the ship had been from the view inside the Jumper before they'd been sucked aboard. It was huge, and it wasn't simple.

Closing his eyes, and rubbing his hands up and down the cloth on the pants they'd provided, he started reciting the Mersennes primes…

TBC

AN: Thanks so much gaffer for being a wonderful beta!

Edited: Thanks Silverthreads, that was my goof, I've fixed it, thanks for the catch!


	7. Chapter 7

AN: I apologize profusely for the delay, RL has been mean mean mean!**  
**

**Chapter Seven**

"Twenty-seven bottles of beer on the wall, twenty seven bottles of beer, you take one down and pass it around, twenty-seven bottles of beer on the wall -"

_This is pointless. The wall you so carefully build in your mind cannot stand. Unit McKay has been cooperative, and because of that, he is not nearly as uncomfortable as you._

Sheppard scowled into the darkness. His stomach growled traitorously into the room, echoing. Raising his voice, he kept singing. "Twenty-six bottles of beer on the wall, twenty-six bottles of beer – gah!"

A sharp shock twisted his words, cutting them off.

When the pain subsided, he straightened his back against the cold metal, still in the position with his body drawn as close together as possible to conserve heat. The constant barrage of messages about Rodney had driven Sheppard to this state – the need to occupy his mind with something, anything, but not McKay.

And with that in mind, "Twenty-five bottles of beer on the wall, twenty-five bottles of beer -"

_Your trainer unit will be presenting water. You've been in this room for over two days, and you must drink and eat. It won't be pleasant, but it will sustain life. _

Sheppard's harsh out-of-tune singing stopped. He peered towards where he thought the robot was. But then his mind focused on a point the aliens had mentioned.

"You told me yesterday it'd been two days, and you gave me water and food!" he accused. "It's been three, at least." Because he wasn't even sure if they hadn't been lying yesterday.

_You are mistaken. Your mind is wandering in your seclusion. It has been two point four of your solar days._

Solar? God damn it! John desperately slammed another vision into his mind. The poster of Johnny Cash, and his skateboard – Rodney…not Rodney, "I need to see McKay," he blurted.

Even as he said it, it pissed him off. Why was he going there? John had thought of things that meant a lot to him and there the trail had gone from Cash to skate board to Rodney McKay. Go figure. The line between simple pleasures and complicated relationships was a pretty short one for John Sheppard.

_We understand, and once you admit your feelings about unit McKay, you may have time together as a reward. To distrust is a natural state for you. His actions caused you to doubt him. It is understandable. To admit to a reasonable state is not wrong._

The anger boiled to the surface. John had been tormented, shocked, deprived, and now he was being told something that he knew wasn't true, and he hadn't even wanted to talk about Rodney with these psychological blobs. His issues with Rodney McKay, regardless of what they were, were his alone, and Sheppard wasn't into forced group therapy.

The emotion wasn't enough to generate heat, and he felt awkward and stiff, remaining tightly balled while he shouted at the ceiling. "I know what I think, and I trust Rodney McKay with my life! You read thoughts, you know I'm telling the truth, so this is all a game, which means nothing I do is going to help."

A flask of water rolled against his leg.

A reward? Did he figure something out? Good boy and all that stuff, or was he really getting dehydrated and needed the water? He'd urinated earlier, but he didn't even know where he'd gone in this stupid cell. He'd just crawled far away from his current spot, done it, and crawled back. John was weak, that's why he'd crawled, so there was that – maybe it had been two days, or three? More?

Closing his eyes against the disjointed thoughts in his mind, he pulled the flask to his lips, and started to drink.

_The lie is not to us, but to yourself._

The denial sprang to his lips even as he swallowed his mouthful down. "I'm not lying to myself! Come on, you can't know that! If I'm lying to myself then you wouldn't know it was a lie – this is all a mental gambit– but for what? You never meant to protect, or get us to accept your rules. Who are you? What do you want from us?" he demanded, and tried to tell himself the anger he felt deep inside wasn't because their statement had any level of legitimacy to it.

_Our job is to protect. We cannot protect until you allow us to do so, and we have determined that you will only allow this when you have been broken to the core. You and unit McKay share a bond of strength, and this is where we begin. You say you trust McKay, but you deceive yourself. We see the lie in you. If you do not trust this unit, then all you do now to protect him is contradictory, again, a flaw in your mental processes, proving again the need for protection. You cannot even do such a simple thing as care for yourself – you depend on us already for food and water, and air. If we took these things away, you would die. You are fragile, and destructive, and you must be protected until ready to be loosed again on the universe._

John knew his mind was dragging. He had moments where he drifted off and didn't know it until a shock brought him back to reality. They never let him sleep for long, only enough to get a sweet taste, and then always they brought him back.

But he was trying hard not to give up. John had thought left enough to resist, to ignore, and do whatever he could, to not give these aliens even an ounce of what they wanted, but he'd found himself slipping. Talking and responding when he shouldn't, and that was probably because of the fatigue.

To be this tired, it had to prove he'd been here more than two days, didn't it?

Trying to shake some clarity into his mind, John jerked his head. "We wouldn't need to depend on you, if you hadn't kidnapped us!"

_We would not have come here if it had not been for the destruction of our colony!_

The strength of the telepathic message rocked John, and he winced from the physicality of it. Colony?

The Protectors kept forcing the issue of the Dorandan disaster down his throat, and the Arcturus weapon – could it be that's where their colony had been? But, "The solar system wasn't inhabited! It was abandoned -" he protested, falling short, because when they considered life, they had considered only humans, and the sinking in his stomach had nothing to do now with his current condition.

_We see within your thoughts you understand. We had a colony on the second planet from Doranda. Over a million of our people died. We came as soon as they failed to respond to communications, and we lost all forms of contact. We would not have known it was your people, except for an old, barely functioning monitoring satellite on the outer edge that wasn't destroyed. Heavily damaged, it still played back the horror of our lost colony. Now you see why we must protect? Not only yourselves, but others from you! When you consider life, you only considered yourselves._

Emotions ran hot and cold through John. If they were telling the truth, the impact of what they'd done, it was catastrophic – but if they weren't telling the truth, and it was just another mind game, what then?

And did it excuse them for the treatment of the two humans they had managed to capture?

"If that's true, then you'd hate us, and want to see us pay for our crimes, not protect us!" he shouted.

_We told you, such feelings have long been controlled and contained by our race. We have evolved beyond letting emotions rule our actions. We see in you and unit McKay that you humans have not begun to pull away from rash decisions, based on emotions and inborn driven instincts. We must protect, not only you, but other life!_

The mental barrage thundered to crescendo at the end, and John found himself wincing again from the onslaught. His head ached, and the water wasn't enough. It never was enough.

It was too much. All of it. The mixed thoughts about Rodney, the conditioning torture from these aliens. The very notion that their actions had slaughtered millions of innocents merely because they weren't like them.

His taut muscles relaxed as he just quit caring, at least for now. John hadn't given up, and he wouldn't, but just for this moment, he couldn't maintain his tight ball and his defiance. He wasn't Atlas, he wasn't anything, except a man doing his best and beginning to feel how woefully short the best was at times.

And damn it, he did trust McKay, regardless of what Karnack the Entity insisted.

"You hear that! I trust McKay with my life!" he snarled it with the force of his anger. "And the colony thing, nice try." John was pretty sure that was a lie.

_You trust your life to unit McKay. So be it. We shall see if your trust is validated._

"What?" Sheppard's relaxed pose shattered. "That's not what I said! Listen, you guys really need to stop assuming things, just because you've got some higher power telepathy doesn't mean you're getting it right -" but as he protested, he felt the fog of the familiar drugged sleep began to creep over his senses, and suddenly he couldn't even remember what was making him worried.

OoO

McKay paced restlessly. It'd had to have been days, and more than the one the aliens were insisting had passed. He was thirsty, tired – the constant mental communication had given him a headache that made sleep impossible, even if it weren't for the Terminator Terror, as he'd dubbed the robot.

Trainer two, a thoroughly unimpressive mechanical creation, yet managed to chill him to the bones every time it approached him. He wondered how Sheppard was getting along with trainer one. Miserably, and probably worse than him, because John was stubborn, and when he was backed into a corner, he could be more difficult than Rodney on a bad day.

McKay had seen signs of his deviousness, and been surprised. John's little coup against the Genii when they'd gone to the hive ship to retrieve intel, had been his first real glimpse of the hardness of John Sheppard. The show of trusting others was shattered when he'd pulled Elizabeth aside and gave her instructions for having two additional jumpers poised and ready to defend their team if need be.

The fact that it had been needed hadn't seemed to surprise John at all. McKay hadn't seen it coming.

Rodney figured that maybe his screw up on Doranda had been worse, because even John hadn't seen that one coming.

_Unit Sheppard is approaching._

His head came up, and he darted a look around the room. "Where? Here? I didn't think that was possible, you said we couldn't travel in your ship because of the environment."

_We do not lie; he is being brought to you._

The spike of anticipation, relief, every possible positive feeling washed over Rodney, and it took that moment for him to realize how completely alone he'd felt.

But the logic in his mind wouldn't allow the warm fuzzy feelings to linger.

"That doesn't make sense. I haven't admitted anything – have I?" God, to be honest, he didn't even know what he was sure of anymore.

_You continue to refuse that which is true, as does unit Sheppard. It is a pity, because once again, you have proven that more drastic measures are required. Our patience is not infinite._

McKay threw his hands in the air, exasperated. "Oh, I'm sorry we're screwing your timetable for conversion. Maybe the next aliens you capture will be more amenable to your – methods."

A clear tube rising up from the floor drew his eyes, and he watched mesmerized at the sight of the original robot, Trainer one, standing beside a slumped Sheppard.

_Your friend is not injured. If you wish him to remain in that state, then you must do as we say._

Slowly, the robot rolled into the room as the tube continued up into the roof, pulling away from Sheppard and Trainer one, like a straw being retracted from a cup. The mechanics of the tube was fascinating, and new. Last time they'd used some kind of transporter technology, so why the change?

Focus, McKay – "That's original!" he shouted angrily. "Threaten one with the other's life and get them to go happily along, but one problem, that only ensures my cooperation!"

_One is all we need. You give in, and he will follow._

It was distracting, splitting his attention between the robot dragging Sheppard across the room, and the conversation in his head.

"That doesn't make sense!"

Sheppard wouldn't go merrily along just because Rodney had weakly given in. In fact, Sheppard would probably be pissed at him.

And speaking of Sheppard, Rodney began to walk towards where the robot was laying him down, intent on being near him when John woke. The shock he felt surprised him, and as he crumpled to his knees, he realized that he'd stopped paying attention to his shadow, Trainer two.

"What was that for?" he cried out, pissed. All he'd done was walk towards his friend. "You could've asked!"

_Do not approach unit Sheppard._

"Oh, really, thanks!" he bitched.

Clambering to his feet, Rodney tried unsuccessfully to straighten his clothes, but the events of how many days gone by, made the effort useless. The white scrub like clothes weren't holding up well to being shocked and tortured, go figure.

_You have exactly sixty of your seconds to decide whether Sheppard lives or not._

Rodney froze. "Wait! I don't even know why? You want me to do what? Give me the stakes – you want to keep me like a nice little scientist pet, fine! Let him go!"

_We want the location of the others of your kind. We have seen in both your minds two homes, one here, and one…far away. _

Rodney McKay had felt fear, and despair, and the certainty that they were going to die before, but this – this was something new. Sheppard's life for betraying all of their kind.

"That's not fair. You can't possibly expect me to hand over the entire human race to save one life?"

Rodney had tried to muster every bit of indignation and scorn behind it, hoping they'd agree and release Sheppard, but inside, a small part of his soul was crawling frantically away because it knew that the aliens wouldn't stop, and that left him with one option only.

_Fifty-two._

"He doesn't deserve this!" Rodney shouted. "I'll take his place!"

McKay's face paled and he dropped his eyes to the floor, rapidly thinking. "Oh my god, I can't believe I just said that. I don't want to die – but I don't want Sheppard to die." He looked back up, his face a mimic of wonder. "That's…downright selfless. Wow."

_Forty-eight._

Apparently the aliens weren't interested in Rodney's epiphany.

"Stop!" he called. "Just stop, for a minute, please…" and there was another new one. He never said please.

_Forty-one._

Seconds were all Sheppard had left. McKay knew there wouldn't be any reprieves. No last minute saves. John was lying there about to be killed because he couldn't do a damn thing.

Shaking his head numbly, McKay whispered. "I can't. You know I can't. Why are you doing this?"

_Thirty-seven. He trusted you._

McKay knew that. Knew that even after the fiasco on Doranda, Sheppard trusted him. Sheppard would follow him wherever he said 'go' because of that trust. And now Sheppard was going to die because of him.

A dawning knowledge made him swell up with pride. Sheppard did trust him. "If you kill him, you're killing an innocent man, and going against the vaunted ethics you keep thrusting in our faces." Rodney sat on the floor and kept his chin up. "I won't hand over my friends, and my entire race, to beings like you."

_Then unit Sheppard will die._

"And you will have failed to protect."

The voice in his head was quiet. McKay wanted to believe it was because what he had argued made a difference, but staring across at John's still body, he was afraid it hadn't.

The floor under his body shuddered, and Rodney jerked. He waited for it to come again, but he didn't feel it. Seconds ticked away, and he knew it'd passed the cut-off, yet trainer one stood impassively by Sheppard's body and made no move to kill the colonel.

Narrowing his eyes suspiciously, Rodney got up and moved towards John, looking casually over his shoulder. Trainer two remained motionless. Closer he went, and still, both robots failed to react.

Just as he neared Sheppard's feet the ship shook again, hard, and Rodney was almost thrown to the floor. The two trainer units didn't move. Something bad was happening, he could feel it. The only explanation for those robots to be inactive was for the aliens to be preoccupied. Rodney had a hunch the preoccupation was the cause of the shaking of the ship.

Rodney latched on to Sheppard's upper body, and pulled. It felt like he was removing John from some kind of liquid stasis. There was resistance from something he couldn't see, but with one final tug, they both fell against the floor, Sheppard cradled in his arms.

While he tried to catch his breath, John began to stir fitfully.

"Wake up," huffed Rodney, jostling Sheppard's shoulder, and trying to pull his legs out from under Sheppard's weight. "Who would've thought you weighed this much?"

"You're never here when I need you. I drowned in the gate room, where were you? I was surrounded by wraith, where were you? Stupid damn Koyla and his goons, twice, no less, tried to make off with my body and intelligence, and again, where – were – you?"

Sheppard groaned, and tried to roll away from McKay, but Rodney latched on tighter.

"You're panicking, McKay," coughed John, blinking his eyes a few times before focusing on the hovering face above him.

"I'm not panicking," refuted Rodney.

The ship shuddered again, deep and hard, and metal groaned nearby. Alarmed, McKay relaxed his hold on Sheppard, who took the chance to sit up…sloppily.

"Yes, you are. There's a time for panicking and then there's a time for not panicking -"

Rodney bobbed his head irritably. "Yes, fine, this isn't the time for panicking."

John smiled ruefully. "No, I think this qualifies as a time for panicking."

As if the aliens had read their mind, again, the clear tube shot into the room, and then continued on up through the roof, before falling back down after only making it halfway. A loud popping noise, and the tube began to fill with what they could only assume was the aliens natural environment, because it was oozing into the tube from the ceiling.

"Then this is me panicking," agreed Rodney.

Both men stared worriedly at the filling tube and watched as drops began to escape the seal around the ceiling and fall to their floor at an increasingly fast pace.

Now was definitely the time for panicking.

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

**AN:** As always, the reviews brightened my day, and made me laugh...although, the bastard son of an unequal fraction had me a little worried. I think I looked over my shoulder, just to be safe. GRIN.**  
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**Chapter Eight**

Having been in this situation once, Sheppard had no desire to do it again, yet the inexorable rise of the goo in the room was making it clear that unless some miracle waltzed in and smacked them in the face, they were going to go through it, regardless of what they wanted. And, he had to wonder, would the aliens save them this time?

The chuckle that escaped through his dry and cracked lips came about at the thought that he'd even be happy if the miracle smacked him in the ass. Just as long as it arrived.

"We're gonna die." Rodney was looking at the now thigh-deep viscous liquid, and shaking his head, as if bewildered that this was happening.

The denial that they weren't going to die didn't quite make it out. John really couldn't see how they were walking out of this one, short of the aliens' benevolence, and seeing how recent events under the _Protectors_ tender mercies had played out, it wasn't looking good.

McKay had helped John to his feet before the liquid cemented them to the floor. The space ship had stopped shuddering, and whether it was an internal problem or something external, he didn't know.

Instead of asserting something he didn't believe, John offered the only thing he could. "Stay positive, Rodney. I'm sure something will happen."

It was at that moment that groaning metal echoed loudly around them, and Sheppard had the intense itchy feeling that it sounded a lot like all the movies he'd seen with people being in a submarine moments before the water pressure buckled the bulkhead, and flooded the inner compartments.

"That's not good," Rodney said. He looked wild-eyed at John and repeated. "That's really not a good thing."

"And here I thought it was the second coming," muttered Sheppard.

The worst part about the situation was the lack of ability to move. Once the liquid had oozed around their ankles, they'd become anchored. The effect was similar to the mud flats in the Chinook bay. John had once heard about a woman who had been caught out on the flats when the tide had started to wane.

Despite her husband's frantic attempts, she'd been held firmly by the glacial silt. He'd gone for help, and all the rescue attempts proved fruitless. The man had watched helplessly as his new wife had drowned.

And now he was stuck next to Rodney, in a similar predicament, except they were both going to drown. Was it any better to die with a friend, or to watch the other go down first? John tried to push the morbid thoughts away.

"Should we try to get their attention, or just wait for the end? Because to be honest, I'm not really sure I want to go back to the whole conditioning torture routine -"

Rodney looked vulnerable as he asked John, but Sheppard didn't have an answer. He wasn't eager to go back to the cold dark room either. But wasn't life preferable to death? Wasn't any hope better than none?

Then again, did they really want to spend the remainder of their lives as caged animals, conditioned, and possibly betraying everyone they ever cared about, and millions more?

The fact that McKay had thought ahead, and was beginning to accept that maybe death was the thing to do, scared Sheppard more than anything else had so far.

And considering what they'd been through, that was saying a lot.

"It's been an honor, Colonel."

Sheppard narrowed his eyes at McKay. The scientist was putting on a stiff upper lip, so to speak, but only John would've been able to detect that slight tremble in the façade, the crack that showed that Rodney was putting on a show.

"Don't do that again," warned John.

"Do what?"

"The whole 'we're going to die' thing. You did it last time and we didn't die then, and besides, didn't I tell you to 'stay positive'?"

Rodney sighed, exasperated. "Excuse me for wanting to make sure you know how highly I think of you moments before we're killed!"

Sheppard cocked his head towards the closest wall. The metal was beginning to bulge. Distractedly he replied, "We're not gonna die."

And there it was. The lie he'd tried not to say, but he couldn't help it. And that's when a thin spidery crack appeared in the middle of the bulging metal, with branches arcing off to the left and right, up and down, and as each crack splintered in a new direction, the main rupture grew wider and more crevassed, and just as Sheppard turned to McKay and said, "Son of a bitch!" the metal gave like a broken dam, and viscous material spewed in the room as if it were an unfettered ocean, moving much faster than one would expect for the gelatinous property of the liquid.

The force of the material flooding into the room did what they hadn't been able to do, and that was move them. It was like being caught in an avalanche, and all John was aware of was the wall of gel blasting into him, and seeing McKay lifted and rolled like a toy. And then it all went dark as he felt his head slam into something hard and unyielding…

OoO

"Colonel Sheppard?"

The voice was soft and faraway, and John really didn't feel like responding.

"Son, I know you can hear me, open your eyes now."

It was more insistent, poking into his quiet fuzzy place, and he tried to shrug back farther because nothing good was waiting for him in that world, and he wasn't falling for the tricks.

"What is wrong with him, Doctor Beckett? Why does he not wake?"

Sheppard heard the frustration in that voice, a different one this time.

"I don't know, lass. We can only speculate what happened to Rodney and the colonel on the ship…until they do decide to come out of it, we're only guessing."

And John let the pseudo world fade…

… "Carson said talking to you might help, John, but I don't know what to say." There was a pause. "As you said, I'm not very good with my bedside manner, but I brought your book -"

Sheppard's brain tried to rev up. He heard her talking, and knew that he knew her, but things were disjointed and wrong inside, and his mind wasn't cooperating…

" – the only problem, I don't know what page you were on…"

How long it took, John didn't know, but his eyes responded, and he got them to open. It took a few rusty tries, and things were blurry at first, but after some blinking and concentrating, the room came into focus.

Elizabeth. She'd been there, but the chair was empty now. He looked and saw the thick volume of War and Peace on a table by his bed. Things were clicking into place and with surprise he realized where he was. Atlantis!

But, the last thing he remembered was being hit by a wall of gel, and the certainty that the end was at hand, unless the protectors had decided to save their lives – how then did they get here?

"You're awake."

John slid his eyes back up towards the left. Carson Beckett stood there in all his normality, white coat and five o'clock shadow, scruffy hair and Sheppard wasn't sure what to think.

"Are you real?" he asked.

Carson approached carefully, and pulled up one of those twirly stools that always seemed to be around hospitals. "Aye. I'm real, Colonel."

The harsh chuckle twisted Sheppard's face and made him cough. After accepting the water from Beckett, he cleared his throat and said, "Excuse me if I don't believe it."

"Son, the Daedalus rescued you and Rodney from an alien ship, but you were both catatonic. You were brought back to Atlantis, and have been that way ever since."

"How long?" It wasn't so much a question, as it was a demand. Looking around, even while waiting for the answer, John spied the still form on the other side of the room. Why so far away?

Beckett traced his gaze and nodded, "Rodney hasn't woken yet, you're the first." He sighed, and caught John's stare with his own. Before he finished, his voice dropped and became as haggard as his face. "It's been two weeks…two very long weeks."

Two weeks? Then they had been conditioned – tortured, for longer than the aliens had said, but what if this wasn't real? What if this was all another attempt at getting in their mind? The aliens had been able to learn and create at an extraordinary level. "We were missing for two weeks?"

Beckett shook his head gently. "No, you've been catatonic for two weeks."

"Doc, what was the inadvertent joke you made when I was stuck in the jumper, and had that nasty bug on my neck?"

"What?" Beckett's brow wrinkled in confusion.

"Telepathic, remember?" Rodney's weak voice interrupted John's attempt at figuring out if this was real, or a trick.

It took a lot of effort to push himself up on his elbows and look at McKay, but John managed it. McKay wasn't up, but he had his head turned towards them, and he had a lot of wires going in and out of his body. With a degree of shock, Sheppard looked down at his own body and noticed for the first time the same level of monitoring on him, and the presence of a catheter backed up Carson's two weeks claim.

"I keep reminding you they're telepathic," McKay continued tiredly. "When you thought of the idea, you undoubtedly thought of the correct answer, and they'll be able to parrot it back as if he were really Carson…and we both know that he isn't. It's impossible. This is all just another mind game to get us to give up and give them what they want."

"What the bloody hell are you going on about?" Beckett scowled at both men equally.

"Nothing," John answered quickly. Too quickly. "Look, we seem to be missing a few things, can you fill in the blanks? How did we get rescued?"

As he was waking up more, he began to take stock of his body. Two weeks of being in a catatonic state had taken its toll on him. His muscles felt sluggish and sore, and he wondered if the aliens would be able to replicate that state…perhaps if they'd kept them drugged for two weeks?

Carson didn't want to let it go, but seeing the resolved faces staring back at him, he nodded slowly. "All right, then. I know you'll have questions, so let's start at the beginning, shall we?"

At Sheppard's steely stare, he did just that. It seemed that Hermiod had kept analyzing the sensor information, and the Asgard had discovered evidence of the readings being mechanically created. Alerted by the information, the Daedalus had radioed Atlantis and found out that communication had been lost with the jumper. Elizabeth had asked Caldwell to investigate, and that's when they'd found the massive alien ship hovering in the same space as the anomalous readings.

Whereas the jumper had been prey for the taking, the Daedalus' sophisticated systems had withstood the energy blast designed to render it powerless.

A message from the alien's ship had demanded the Daedalus withdraw, and that was when Hermiod had informed Caldwell that they'd located their life-signs. Colonel Caldwell ordered the aliens to release Sheppard and McKay, or they'd 'blow them out of the sky', and John was pretty sure that was Carson's own interpretation of events. Or would be, if this were real.

The aliens had refused, but had no offensive weaponry, and the laser cannons had laid a barrage on the larger craft, providing a break in the defensive shields, long enough for Hermiod to beam out the two men.

"What happened then? Are they still alive?" Rodney asked tiredly.

John wasn't sure McKay was referring to the aliens.

A shake of Beckett's head was the fast answer, but he explained further. "Caldwell said the ship exploded like a bloody ripe watermelon in space. You both are incredibly lucky."

"Yeah. Lucky." Voice flat, Sheppard looked away, but met McKay's eyes.

There were undercurrents floating about, and it would've been impossible for Beckett to not be buffeted by them. The doctor took equal turns watching them, but either oblivious or uncaring, they weren't responding anymore, and John knew that Carson was well aware they weren't oblivious to anything.

A hand on his leg, and Carson said quietly. "When you need to talk -" but he dropped off, and left it unfinished.

His feet moved away, and then he and Rodney were alone in the room. Because of the tubes and wires, they couldn't get up, and even if it weren't for them, Sheppard doubted either one was in a condition where they could do much more than sit up.

His head hurt, body ached, and all he could think about was not thinking about anything that he shouldn't. Because if they were wrong – if this wasn't real – the cost would be unspeakable.

With a final long look towards Rodney, John closed his eyes and willed himself back asleep. It wasn't hard.

The next few days they spent in silent recovery, only talking when they had to, and everyone who visited knew something wasn't quite right with Sheppard and McKay.

Reluctant to say anything, unwilling to discuss what had happened on the alien ship, concerns were rising about their mental competence, and John knew that soon they must face the truth, whichever truth it was.

The day the catheters, and IV lines were removed, and the day physical therapy started to get their muscles more cooperative, was the same day that John moved to the bed next to Rodney.

No one mentioned it, and no one sent him back.

The days had ticked into a week, and now they'd been told by Elizabeth that to be returned to active status, they'd have to talk to Heightmeyer. It boiled down to 'if you don't want to talk to anyone else, you will talk to her'.

The day they were discharged from the infirmary, Rodney and Sheppard set out to explore the city together against the orders for them to return to their quarters and rest.

John was beginning to think maybe it hadn't been such a hot idea. "Look at it this way, if they were getting all this from our thoughts, they wouldn't need to trick us, because they'd already have the city."

Rodney had started saying no before Sheppard had even finished. "But you're forgetting – damnit!"

He knew why Rodney was swearing, because he'd done the same thing, unbidden the name had come to both their thoughts, and if this wasn't real, they'd given the name and maybe a good enough picture of surrounding space, and god knows what else.

Turning into a deserted corridor, Sheppard tugged Rodney along. "Take us somewhere in the city that we haven't been before," he ordered. "That way, we'll know."

"That won't work," Rodney said annoyed.

"Why?"

"Because, Colonel, they could extrapolate from our thoughts Atlantis design, and with enough knowledge as they've shown, it wouldn't be a stretch for them to fill in the blank spaces and we'd never know the difference, because we'd never been there to begin with – so how would we know if it were inaccurate?"

Damn. "This is complicated," swore Sheppard.

Rodney agreed, "We can't keep going on like this."

"Did they strike you as the type to give up easily?"

"Not really. But the last thing I remember is being tumbled like a bowling ball in a wave of gel." McKay aimed for a console in a room they had walked into. He pushed some buttons and waited.

John followed, watching his movements. "What's that?"

"The one way to find out what's real and what's not," said McKay vaguely.

The crystals flashed, and Rodney opened the laptop he'd brought along, though John wondered what he hoped to accomplish. "Rodney, I don't think your computer is going to tell us what's real, and what isn't. I mean, for that matter, I could be talking to a wall right now."

"Exactly, and so could I – watch, Colonel."

He typed in more commands and then spun the laptop towards John.

It was the self destruct program, and the first code had already been entered. John narrowed his eyes at the screen in disbelief. "What are you doing, McKay?"

He smiled smugly. "Only six people in Atlantis know the codes, Colonel. You and I are two of those. If this is all fake, something the aliens have programmed and created, then they've done so off of our memories. If it's you, the command you enter will be accepted. If it's not you, then my recreation will fail to initiate the self-destruct code. Now, I'm assuming that they didn't consider these things when they recreated the city, and that the self-destruct program was part of the city because everything we've seen so far has been detailed to every possible level I could think of."

"Woah, back up, you've been examining the level of detail to find out how accurate the city is?"

Rodney's face fell, as if he were disappointed in Sheppard. "Of course, haven't you?"

John shrugged defensively. "Sure. Anyway, don't you think blowing up the city is a little extreme?"

"That's the brilliant thing," Rodney exclaimed. "Look, follow along with me, here – if this you is really you," Rodney's eyes crossed inward for a moment but he continued, "anyway, you'll know the right code, because the odds of you being in the same situation in another virtual reality and thinking the code so that they could read the information from you…well, they're rather large, and if you are you, and enter the right code, that will initiate the self-destruct program, thus proving to me that at the very least, we are really together, wherever this is."

"Okay, so you are going to blow us up," drawled Sheppard.

A long drawn out sigh was Rodney's reply, but he just jabbed an impatient finger at the keyboard. "Enter your code and I'll explain the higher logic involved in this."

Still not fully getting it, Sheppard thought back to the alien's insistence that he didn't trust McKay. If this was a test, to see if he truly did trust Rodney, this was a good way to do it. By entering the self-destruct, he was setting a chain of events that could only be stopped by two people. He alone couldn't reverse it once the countdown was started. If they really were in the city, there were four others that could abort the sequence, but if this was a reproduction, and McKay wasn't real and this was all in his mind then Rodney failing to abort the sequence could mean his death.

And god was his head hurting at trying to make sense of everything. Vowing that he did trust Rodney, he only hesitated for a moment, before typing the code. He pulled back and forced nonchalance. "See, it's me."

The code was accepted, and the countdown began.

"Now," Rodney said. "We wait."

"Rodney," warned John, because he really didn't want to be blown up, make believe or not.

"The beauty, Colonel, of logic. If this isn't real, I've programmed an addendum to the self-destruct code, so that it won't accept the same two codes for abort as it did for the initial sequence. You and I, we can't shut it down," he gloated.

The sick feeling in John's stomach intensified, and he found himself flashing back to Arcturus, and shouting at Rodney that it was time to go, before they were blown up. He'd walked right into this one, blind-sided…the urge to twist the computer towards him and start trying to abort was overwhelming.

_You don't trust unit McKay…_

It'd been a litany the aliens had barraged him with.

_Tell us how you felt when unit McKay almost cost you your life, and his as well…so little did he value human life over scientific discovery._

Shaking off the painful thoughts, John glanced at the seconds rolling past. "I trust you," he asserted.

Rodney seemed startled by the admission, but nodded, accepting it. "If I did this right, the aliens won't be able to salvage this…virtual reality…and if we are in the city, there are four individuals who can abort the self-destruct sequence, and by doing so, we'll know this is," he waved at the walls, "real."

"Couldn't they abort, if they created this, isn't the programmer able to adjust the program?"

McKay held up a finger, "But not in time." He pointed towards the countdown. "Forty-five seconds left."

"By now, they'll be scrambling to get everyone to the command center, at least one other person who can abort the program. Elizabeth has a code, Beckett and Zelenka. The beauty is that we don't know their codes, and there's no way for the aliens to read that information from our minds."

They both heard the pounding of boots running down the hall, and weren't surprised by the entrance of Sergeant Bates leading a security team.

Bates hit the button on his earpiece. "We've found them, Ma'am. Confirmed," Bates said looking at the computer screen, "the self-destruct was initiated here." He waved the barrel of his P90 at Sheppard and McKay, "Get against the wall, Colonel, Doctor. Hands up where we can see them!"

The orders were shouted, but Bates did so evenly, and with calm assurance. John knew if they made any sudden movements, they'd be blasted with more than a few bullet holes.

And the city began the countdown.

Ten…

Nine…

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

AN: So, the cliffie hate was pretty strong, but I coped with it. :) Niichan626, nah, it didn't scare me...to much! (joking aside, I loved it, seriously) You all overwhelmed me, seriously, so many comments and I loved each and every one of them! I know the updates have been straggling on this one and all I can do is say "I'm terribly terribly sorry, it was a complete BLEEP to write". So, (and I'm practically shoving this chapter away with a ten-foot pole), here the thing is, and I'm so glad I've almost got it done. Some stories practically write themselves...some you have to finish kicking and screaming the whole way. And, the epilogue will actually have some serious meat too it, so don't skip it!**  
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**Chapter Nine**

Eight…

Seven…

John stared mutely at Bates, half expecting him to suddenly warp and disappear.

Six…

Five…

"Rodney." John really didn't want to blow up.

"Just wait, either this will end, or this will…end."

Four…

Three…

"Self destruct aborted," the soft mechanical voice of the city announced.

John watched as Bates twitched ever so slightly, but the gun didn't. He looked sideways at Rodney. "We're so screwed."

Rodney was looking uncomfortably at Bates, and was nodding slightly, agreeing with Sheppard. "It doesn't look good, does it?"

"Ma'am, what are your orders?" Bates kept his eyes and gun trained steadily on them.

Whatever she said, John didn't know, because he didn't have his radio on. It didn't take a rocket scientist to guess what it was, though. Of course, it just so happened, he had a rocket scientist.

"They're gonna lock us up, and throw away the key," moaned McKay. He seemed to kind of realize the higher gravity of the situation because he turned a panicked stare on John and said, "We almost blew up the city. I can't believe we almost blew up the city!"

Oh, yeah. That would look good on the monthly evaluations report. 'Shows initiative, attempted to destroy workplace to disprove theory that it was all make believe'. Just give them the padded rooms now, because there probably wasn't anyway they were going to explain this sufficiently to escape the wrath of Weir.

"Follow me, Colonel, Doctor," ordered Bates. The sergeant strode out the door and John's momentary thought of making a run for it went out the window when one of the other members of the security team seemed to take a lot of pleasure out of stroking his stunner.

When this was over with, he was going to find out who that solider was, and send him packing. Seriously. Too much pleasure in his CO's mental 'screwed with by aliens, hence unexpected actions and bad bad ramifications' moment.

"I asked if you were gonna blow us up," hissed Sheppard.

"I didn't think it was real!"

"Colonel, Doctor McKay, step in please," Bates asked.

They'd arrived at the brig. The marine was keeping his tone professional, but Sheppard could see by the gleam in his eye that Bates was just waiting for the opportunity to stun his ass, again, can we say reassignment?

The tension over the past year between them hadn't been alleviated any by Bates' recovery from the Wraith beating, and subsequent changes in personnel.

Once they were in, Bates activated the force field. Sheppard slunk to a corner, and sat down, wishing the entire last month was a bad dream. Hell, he didn't even know for sure how long they'd be captured for. Beckett had said they'd been catatonic for two weeks, but as both of them had been sure this was all a falsity, they'd not pressed for more information.

"Having flashes of another virtual reality, Colonel?" Rodney asked, dropping beside him.

It hadn't been that long ago they'd been in a similar position, but that time it had been a virtual reality. Too bad he couldn't close his eyes and think his way out of this.

"If only it was that easy," he admitted to McKay.

Rodney was watching the doors that led into the brig with no small amount of anxiety. "Do we have any lawyers on the team?"

With an internal shudder, John said, "I don't think we're going to need to worry about lawyers…maybe proctologists -"

"Tha- eww," McKay stumbled. He tried again. "Wrong. Very very wrong. You know, if we hadn't been working together for the past year and a half, I'd really worry about your mental health."

"Mental health? Rodney, I just tried to blow up the city with you to prove how much I trusted you," he barked, incredulous. "You know, most people, when they want show how much they trust you, they give you the keys to their car, or a pet to baby-sit, or the house for the weekend – they don't try to blow up something!"

"For the record, the intent was not to blow up, but to prove the reality of this…reality."

John hung his head. "I've got a headache."

There wasn't much to add to that, and silence fell like a sulking blanket over the cell's occupants. It was a while before Elizabeth blazed in, and Sheppard kind of thought she should've been calmed down at that point, but she still looked fairly angry – in fact, she was practically vibrating with it.

She toed up to the force field. "I've just spent the last hour trying to explain to the SGC why my two top members of this expedition tried to self-destruct Earth's greatest find," she grated, and her voice was too calm, and too precise, for the anger reflected in her face.

She started to pace around them, making it seem like they were the ones watching the wild animal pace in their cage. It was unnerving. The feet stopped, and she asked one question. "Why?"

Rodney looked sideways at John, and Sheppard shrugged. Didn't really matter who tried to explain, either way, they were pretty much damned for hellfire and brimstone, of the Elizabeth Weir sort.

Go for the 'it's kind of funny, actually' angle, or for the more serious, 'feel sorry for us poor brainwashed people'? John kind of leaned towards the empathy concept. They had been tortured, basically, in a twisted mental mind fuck, "And will you STOP looking at us like that!" he exclaimed to Bates, who had this gleeful smirk twitching on his lips.

"John?"

His off-tangent comment had worked where nothing else might have, so he ran with it.

"Elizabeth, we don't even know if this is real," he said pushing himself to his feet. He walked towards where she stood tense outside the cell. "Do you have any idea what it's like to sit here and doubt everything around you?"

Rodney raised a hand, "I thought we'd covered that this was real, hence, the self-destruct almost killing everyone."

"Not helping," Sheppard gritted, rounding towards McKay.

The sympathy moment stopped, hovered, and flew away. Her hands went to her hips, and she became stiff and stoic. "That's no excuse for what you did," she affirmed. "Do you know that your actions came very close to killing everyone? Me, Zelenka, Beckett – hundreds of innocents!"

"Oh, please," disputed Rodney. "There were four people who could enter the abort code. There was never any risk."

The strained appearance on Weir's face didn't bode well for them. She lifted her hand, and held up four fingers. "Zelenka was at the north pier working on the grounding station, too far from the transporters and no way of getting back in time," one finger folded, "Caldwell is on the Daedalus," she twisted practically with the irony and dropped another finger, "_headed_ back to Earth and not able to return in time, and Beckett had his arms inside a woman's body trying to remove her appendix!" the third finger dropped. "He had to leave the woman in the care of the nurse to run like hell and barely make it in time to enter the abort code!"

Which one turned whiter, Sheppard didn't know, but suddenly he felt incredibly light-headed, and found himself stumbling back, and dropping to the ground by Rodney.

McKay wasn't staring at anyone so much as just…sitting with his eyes open.

"Is the woman all right?" Rodney forced through numb lips.

She folded her arms, and was there just the slightest softening, Sheppard wondered, before she answered, "Yes, she's going to be fine. The nurse handled it admirably." She took another steadying breath before pushing further into their rattled space. "Three seconds, Rodney. Three more seconds, and none of us would be alive now."

"I didn't know," he said before repeating, and this time it was John he was talking to, saying what he needed to say, "I didn't know."

Surprising John with her savagery, Elizabeth nailed it home. "That's right, Rodney, you didn't know."

As much as Sheppard's head was pounding, he almost hoped he'd just pass out, and wake up from the growing nightmare, and judging from McKay's face, the feeling was mutual. Kind of ironic, hoping for some of that alien knock-out juice at a time like this. But what if McKay's logic had been flawed, and there was still a chance –

"Elizabeth," softly he called, "you don't understand – what if this isn't real? What if we're still there, on that ship, and this is just another way they are trying to get us to break?"

"If Rodney's test failed to assure you otherwise -"

McKay's face had cleared from the dejection and he snapped his fingers, exulted, "You might be on to something, it's possible that I was wrong, in fact, considering the circumstances we've been through, it's probable – which means, this isn't real," he chuckled with an edge of hysteria, "Elizabeth isn't really here chewing us out and our careers are not actually officially over!"

Out of the corner of his eyes, John caught Elizabeth murmuring something to Bates, and the gloating smirk had even fallen from the Sergeant's face at some point during his and Rodney's consulting about their situation. Doubt – there'd always be doubt.

"Doctor Beckett and Doctor Heightmeyer are going to come and see you both," she said gently, gone was the anger, and now suddenly, John wanted it back. "We'll get you two through this," she promised.

Sheppard exhaled loudly. "This is great. We've just gone from possible court martial to definitely strait jackets." He tried to roll the ache out of his shoulders.

"No one is going to put you in a strait jacket, John," assured Elizabeth. "Unless you try to blow up the city, again."

"That was Rodney!" he protested.

"I didn't steal the code from your brain, and I distinctly remember you punching in your half of the code."

Sheppard pointed an accusing finger, waggling it a little, because damn if he wasn't the one edging into hysteria at this point, "But it was your idea!"

Beckett arrived, and interrupted the party, because it was just so much fun questioning one's sanity. He looked as angry as Elizabeth had when she first arrived, but John watched as she took Carson's arm and drew him off to the side, where all Sheppard could hear were the soft murmurs of their conversation.

When he turned back towards them, the anger had softened to sympathy…and pity. And that made John angry. He hated being pitied.

He nudged Rodney, "Let's blow this joint."

McKay lifted his head out of his hands and asked, "How? We're locked up, about to be descended on by Doctor McCoy and Nurse Chapel, and anything and everything we do from here on out will dictate just how long we get to visit the aforementioned medical professionals. You tell me, how can we 'blow this joint' without ensuring they lock us up and throw away the key?"

"Spoilsport," John hissed.

"Idiot," McKay retorted.

"Colonel," called Beckett cordially. He had entered their cell during the back and forth with McKay, and had overheard at least some of it, judging from the amusement that tempered his concern. "We're just going to run some tests, okay? Rodney?"

John and Rodney cast sideways looks at the other, before holding out their arms and rolling up the sleeves on their jackets.

Beckett smiled tightly. "Good, lads. We'll be done in no time, and once you get cleared, back to the infirmary with you."

"And that's supposed to reassure us?" snapped McKay. "The infirmary isn't improving our situation any."

Elizabeth hadn't left. "You won't be locked up, Rodney. It's better."

No kidding. Change of status from prisoner to nutcase. John was siding with McKay on this one.

Beckett went about the business of drawing blood, and that's when Heightmeyer arrived, ushered in the cell, and started grilling them on their mental status. Were they a risk to others? To themselves?

John had informed her stiltedly that they were apparently all the above, and that didn't make anyone happy, but it was the truth. Their actions had almost cost everything – if this was real…and that's where the kicker came in. He could see in McKay's eyes the same doubt, the same uncertainty that this was all still a double fake out by the aliens.

Whatever they said, it appeased everyone, because after the bloodwork came back, and it must have been some STAT order, because he didn't think they'd been talking to Kate and Carson for very long before some young lab tech came rushing in with the results, they were ushered out of the brig and down to the infirmary.

Stripped of their uniforms, with great reluctance on both their parts, they were reduced to scrubs again. John couldn't help but flash back to the clothes the aliens had given them to wear.

"Could we have something else?" he asked Beckett. "Our jeans, and t-shirts, something besides scrubs?"

Shaking his head, Carson pointed at the beds.

They climbed in, got settled, and then ignored everyone else but each other. Because this wasn't how they'd guessed their homecoming would be, in fact, they'd started to believe there wasn't going to be any homecoming, and now everyone thought they were crazy.

Carson wandered off, but two guards remained at the infirmary doors. John knew there'd be regular sessions with Kate, and until both of them passed good enough, they'd be stuck in the infirmary.

"We're in trouble, aren't we?"

Shifting his eyes to Rodney, and away from the guards, Sheppard noticed for the first time how vulnerable McKay looked. Had he always been that emotionally transparent?

Clichéd comforts came to mind, but John knew it wasn't going to help. "Rodney, you remember when we were stuck in the jumper, and the gate was counting down, gonna shut off and slice our ship in half?"

McKay narrowed his eyes, thinking back. "Yes, what does that have to do with this?"

"That was probably the preferable situation."

And with that last comment, they fell into a mutually depressed quiet.

At some point, Beckett had a nurse bring some medication, and when John asked what it was for, he said something about helping them rest. Body language must be screaming how uncomfortable they both felt, because the tranquilizers knocked them out for a while.

When he woke up, John saw Kate conversing with Rodney. He shut his eyes, and pretended he was still asleep, wanting to hear what they were talking about.

"How did that make you feel?" he heard Kate ask softly.

The harsh bark from Rodney said more than words could. "How do you think it made me feel? They used me to get to John, and I'm pretty sure it went both ways."

"But you said they lied, tortured, and were conditioning both of you, surely you can't blame yourself for the position these aliens put you in?"

"Why not? They said it was my fault they'd come looking – if I hadn't convinced Colonel Sheppard to go back and try again, none of this would've happened."

John fought to stay quiet, but he wanted to speak out, tell Rodney the only thing he was guilty of was trying to find new technology to help Earth, help the fight against the Wraith, and further mankind. But he was eavesdropping on a private conversation, both people thinking he was still in a drugged sleep.

Kate shifted in her chair, John could hear the material from her pants rubbing together, and she prodded deeper, "Rodney, you could argue the same fallacy for all our exploration into the Pegasus galaxy. Hindsight is never usable to define future events."

Good job, Doc, crowed Sheppard quietly.

"Yeah, well, tell it to him," replied McKay crossly.

And Sheppard knew the hand had pointed his way.

This was bullshit. Rodney wasn't going to shoulder the emotional baggage from the alien's agenda. He opened his eyes, and fixed on to Rodney, ignoring Kate.

"It's not your fault," he asserted.

Rodney forgot about Kate also, and leaned up on an elbow. "What if they weren't lying about the life on that planet? What if I was responsible for the death of over a million of these aliens?"

"I don't know, Rodney, but what can you say or do? We have no way of knowing if they were telling the truth," John said. "But go back to what we do know – they lied from the beginning. 'We mean you no harm', yet we were locked up, subjected to alien environments, tricked, drugged and then subjected to mind games – what makes you think that was anything more than just another mind game?"

"Because it had the kernel of truth, because there had to be a reason for why they did what they did!"

John's heart was pounding, and he felt flushed and mad. The whole thing was beyond what he felt up to dealing with. Hell, Kate was the psychologist, and she was reduced to sitting between their beds, and listening.

"Why?" snapped Sheppard.

Rodney shook his head. "Why what?"

"Why did there have to be a reason for what they did?"

McKay focused inward, before meeting his eyes again. "Because otherwise, everything we went through, had no meaning. It was merely some alien whim to have fun with their pet humans."

"Then give it meaning, Rodney. It doesn't have to be for nothing."

There were things passing between the two of them that Kate could only begin to guess at. The knowledge of what they'd been through, together and separately, and the fact that there was that remaining doubt about what was real and what wasn't…and she knew it.

Knew that this was out of her league, and she'd done the best she could, and that was by getting them to open up, and start talking. If she only knew how hard that part had been.

"I'll leave you two alone," she said standing. "Keep talking, and we'll start going through the events during your confinement when I come back."

They didn't talk, not yet, and she left, giving them the privacy that they needed.

McKay started first, after she was gone. "I never truly believed I was a coward – until on that ship." His voice cracked at the end.

"You're not a coward," John replied.

"I was afraid!"

"What do you think I was? God, Rodney, I've never been so afraid in my life!"

"You didn't show it."

"Yeah, well, I don't show a lot of things," gruffly, Sheppard settled against the sheets, feeling restless.

Like how much McKay's friendship meant, and how bad it'd hurt when Rodney had used it to get his way, and then how cavalierly Rodney had almost thrown away both their lives.

Yet, Rodney was Rodney. Arrogant, brilliant, and learning, just like the rest of them.

"You know, that issue we had after the weapon blew up, I'm over it now."

McKay was genuinely surprised. "Is that what the trust thing was about? Did you ever stop trusting me?"

"Not so much a lull in trust, but…a rearrangement of your priorities. Human lives mean more than technology, and you hadn't learned that, while I always thought you had."

Reflecting inward, Rodney wasn't acting arrogant now. "I never valued lives less, I just didn't think – John," the use of Sheppard's first name got him where nothing else did, because Rodney just didn't open himself up to that level of relationship with people, very rarely, "I really believed I could do it, right up until the end, and even as you were telling me it was time to go, I still thought I could."

"You were still willing to risk our lives based off your inflated sense of ability," argued Sheppard.

"It's not inflated!"

"Yes, it is! You always think you can solve everything, but you can't. We were in the worst of situations, captured, conditioned, tortured and you couldn't get us out anymore than I could – we were rescued, McKay, and maybe part of your eagerness to prove it wasn't real, was part of why you were willing to again risk lives to prove your theory!"

"And why was that?"

Their voices had risen to the level where they were attracting attention, but Sheppard didn't care.

"Because anything else meant you failed," he answered, his words hitting home with deadly impact.

For once, Rodney was speechless. Sheppard continued, "You can't always save the day, you can't always pull it out your ass and present the solution that makes everyone walk off into the sunset and live happily ever after, and that makes you feel weak, and incompetent, but guess what, Rodney, join the human race – as a people, we're infallible and often wrong."

A harsh acerbic laugh and Rodney said, "Don't hold back."

"The point being I don't distrust you, Rodney, I never have. You make mistakes, and I make mistakes, but I still trust you. The other point, you continually try to give yourself a god complex and then rail when you can't live up to it. You've been lucky, a lot of the things that we've dealt with, we got through, but not this time. We weren't able to save ourselves, and if it hadn't been for Hermiod, we'd still be back there."

"And, what if we still are back there?"

Rodney wasn't one to ever avoid the uncomfortable, John would give him that. He rushed headlong into everything. "Then I don't know, but we do know that this isn't like anything else they did. We know that the reactions of our friends and teammates are logical. We know that Ronon and Teyla haven't gotten back yet, and when they do, there'll be one more thing we can evaluate for reality. That's all we can do."

"Aye," agreed Beckett.

He'd been alerted by their loudness, and had wandered over.

"Rodney, you both should've talked to us before, but going off of what you've said, I see why you didn't. But now it's time for you and the colonel to let us help you."

John wished it was that easy, but as much as he preached to Rodney about wanting to save the day, Sheppard didn't have a lack of the god complex either. He had gotten in trouble with Weir for the same thing, and the consequences might have been just about as bad. He'd exposed a lot of people to the nanovirus thanks to how he'd handled the situation. His saving everyone with the overloaded generator aside, it still hadn't negated what he'd done.

Beckett knew what they were thinking, and he offered what he could. "Every step of the way, we'll be patient, but you have to meet us. When you first woke up, neither one of ye talked about what happened on that ship. Don't you think it's time?"

John met Rodney's eyes, and they both shared a moment of wanting to say no, but they also realized it was time. Otherwise, they'd be stuck here for a long time…if they weren't shipped off to earth to be locked away.

"They were the most alien aliens I've ever seen," started John.

Rodney joined in, "Their environment, it was viscous liquid, and when we were first captured, we drowned in it -"

Carson pulled up a chair, and settled in, listening as they both took turns recounting the events, some of which were new to the other, as they had been apart during their captivity at times…and ironically enough, while they opened up, outside the city, the sun began to set…

**Stay tuned for the epilogue!**


	10. Chapter 10

AN: Okay, so here it is, the end, and as much as some of you have said you're sorry for it to end, I've got the same mixture of feelings, because this fic really took me by surprise. It grew into a lot more than I'd intended intitially, and that's largely due to my awesome beta gaffer, who helps so much more than she knows! I've got to say a huge thanks for those of you who take the time to leave feedback, because it really does make a difference. Those of you who write and read know what it means but those of you who just read, I promise you, getting feedback is the highlight of the story, because you get to hear how people react to the story and that's priceless...**  
**

**Epilogue…**

Shivering in the cold, John rocked to keep himself warm. He was colder than he remembered ever being, and he wondered if the aliens had cranked the heat down lower, and he also wondered where McKay was and how he was doing.

It was dark, and stiflingly silent, and all he wanted was to go home. He let his mind shift to pictures of hot sunny beaches, and flying missions in his F-22, purposefully fighting down that which he shouldn't think about.

_Wake up, Colonel Sheppard…_

But he was awake, wasn't he?

John shook his head, "No, no – I'm awake!"

"If you're awake, then I'm Doug Mackenzie," said Rodney wryly.

"Rodney?" John blinked, and the cold dark room faded. He sat up, and realized he wasn't in his room. McKay was walking towards his bathroom –his, not Sheppard's - "How'd I get here?"

He heard the water turn on and a few minutes later Rodney poked his head out the door, toothbrush in hand and with a foamy mouth, "Same way I wound up in your room last night."

The head sucked back into the bathroom and he heard more water running, then McKay was back, tossing Sheppard a towel. "You can use my shower. I think your old uniform is still here. I had it cleaned."

Standing up, John stretched his back, groaning from the stiffness. "You know, this is getting disturbing. Musical quarters, and half the time neither one of us remembers moving during the night."

"But it's always with the nightmares," McKay said, sitting on his bed, and lacing up his boots. "I slept like a baby, but judging from you being on my floor, and looking like hell, I'm guessing it was your turn for it last night."

"Yeah, they were there, in Technicolor," he grouched, moving for the door. He stopped long enough to toss the towel back to Rodney. "I'm gonna shower in my own place this morning. Thanks anyway."

A shrug, and Rodney followed him out. "Meet me in twenty for breakfast?"

"I'll be there," Sheppard called over his shoulder.

As he left Rodney, and headed into his own room, he sighed with the frustration of it all. The midnight rovings had started after they'd been released from the infirmary.

Doctor Heightmeyer continued to see them, and they continued to have nightmares, trouble accepting reality, and an apparently constant need to always know where the other was.

She said it was normal. It was to be expected. They'd been tortured, mentally more than physically, but the deprivation and shocks had taken their toll, too. Kate said you didn't walk away from something like that without scars, and issues. They were clinging to each other because they were the only sure thing that they could trust in.

When he asked how long before they stopped acting like raccoons out on the prowl, she'd said that healing times weren't something you could estimate like taxes, and that the human psyche was resilient. Be patient.

It'd been two months. His patience was waning.

Rodney was handling it better than he was, but Kate had also said that had something to do with his personality. John was a person who liked to always keep things tightly controlled. Losing that control had left some serious trauma in its wake, both on the alien ship and the time after their rescue.

The shower felt good, and it helped ease the sore muscles. He dried off and got dressed, brushing his teeth while running his other hand through his hair.

Jogging to the mess hall, he arrived just in time, and saw Rodney approaching from the other side.

"Glad to see you can still tell time."

John settled for a pithy look at Rodney, and stepped in front of him in the line.

McKay emitted a suffering sigh, before informing him he'd talked to Elizabeth. "They've retrieved some debris from the alien ship."

"Really?" John picked up a tray and remembered Elizabeth saying the Daedalus was taking a team out to see if they could find anything useful. He'd wondered if Kate hadn't suggested it as a way to bring back just one more thing to show them that this was real.

He heard McKay fumble with a tray, before moving forward behind him. Looking at the options in front of him, he pointed half-heartedly at the eggs and bacon and watched as the cook slapped large portions of each on his plate, before handing it over the glass counter.

Frowning at the amount, he cast another look at the woman. She merely smiled noncommittally, and asked Rodney what he wanted. John couldn't help but think Beckett had been talking. Both he and Rodney had been losing weight. It was hard to have an appetite in the aftermath.

"Jesus, do you think we're reincarnations of Boss Hog?" Rodney spat, staring at the plate in disbelief.

"McKay," John said warningly. He nodded at the lady, before shoving Rodney with an elbow, and moved towards the coolers with juice, milk, and muffins.

He followed John but continued to rail at the amount. "Seriously, she could've left some for the rest of the people to eat." Rodney snagged a 2 milk, and passed on his muffin. "Carson needs to shut up."

"You think he's responsible?"

"Don't you?"

John did, actually. "It might have been Kate," he offered, feeling just a little bit of guilt over being angry at someone who was just worried about their health.

They found seats and sat down, trying to ignore the stares that still came their way. Everyone knew. The self-destruct countdown had been kinda hard to miss.

"Not likely," Rodney said crossly. "She's concerned with the mind – Beckett's the one all up in arms because we lost a pound."

It'd been more than a pound. Rodney had lost six, John four. But, he wasn't going to point it out. McKay knew.

"So, coming to my lab after we're done?" Rodney opened his milk, and took a drink, before frowning at it, and setting it back down.

"Sure," John said. He didn't have anything else planned for the day. "I wonder how much they managed to get?"

"Quite a bit, actually."

John watched as Rodney forced a few mouthfuls down, before realizing he really wasn't hungry. He glanced at his plate, and back at McKay, who had paused and was watching him.

"Better eat," Rodney mumbled around the mouthful of food.

He hated this. But John still lifted the fork, and took a bite of the eggs. Then another.

"Good morning, Colonel, Rodney," Teyla said, sitting beside John while Ronon grunted their way and sat beside McKay. Her eyes drifted to the large helping on their plates and she tried to hide the smile, failing miserably.

"Morning Teyla, Ronon," John said. "Sleep good?"

Ronon's shoulders bobbed as he dug into his plate. The runner's table manners had improved over the months, but he still didn't waste time when there was food in front of him. Probably lingering issues with his days of trying to stay alive, always on the run.

"I did." Teyla's tight smile said she knew that John hadn't, and he hoped the dark circles under his eyes weren't too noticeable, or he'd have Beckett breathing down his neck, again.

"You know what, I'm done," McKay said, pushing away his tray.

It was only half-eaten.

John took a few more bites and said, "I'm done, too."

"Colonel, Doctor Beckett's concerned about both of you not eating enough," Teyla said carefully. "Perhaps -"

Shaking his head, he took another drink from his carton of orange juice, before lifting the tray to take to the trashcan. "We're getting there, Teyla. You can't force something like this."

Ronon looked at John's muffin and asked, "You gonna eat that?"

John tossed him the muffin.

As for Teyla, she looked ready to say more, but finally she settled for a small incline of her head and said, "For now." Letting Sheppard know that it wasn't an issue she'd remain silent on for much longer.

He wondered if she knew how tiring it was dealing with everyone else's worry over them…

"Sheppard?"

John looked away from Teyla, to find Rodney waiting impatiently at the door. Sighing, he shook off the uneaten food into the garbage, and set the tray and plate inside the portable tub that was next to the can. He waved casually at the other two members of his team, before following McKay out the door.

The trip to Rodney's lab seemed to go inordinately fast, but that was probably because as curious as John felt about viewing the debris, there was an equal part that didn't even want to revisit the ship in that limited sense.

And then they were there, looking at pieces of metal and things they couldn't identify.

Rodney quickly moved to a middle piece that was shaped like a box, while John figured he'd hover on the outside perimeter and look at the smaller pieces. There were quite a lot, and John knew it was only an impossibly small fraction of what the ship had actually been, because the thing had been huge.

"Do you think they were telling the truth?"

His question took John by surprise, because he was examining a particular piece of wreckage, and what he suspected it to be had him frozen, inside and out.

But Rodney's question prodded in, and John knelt down next to the wrecked pieces. "I thought we'd been through this, McKay."

"Right, and us being through this consisted of you telling me that because they were mean little aliens, they couldn't possibly be telling the truth."

John shrugged, and poked more into the debris – he was pretty sure he recognized what it was. "It's logic, something as a scientist you should appreciate."

"And as a soldier, you should appreciate gut instinct," derided McKay, pulling the box he'd centered on over to his counter for closer inspection.

Dully, John lifted a piece of what he now knew for certain was trainer two. Ironically, it looked like the shock gun piece, and what were the odds of that surviving?

Rodney had stopped talking, and taken the time to look over at him and now asked, "What'd you find?"

John tossed it back in the pile before wiping his hands. "Nothing," he said, walking over to McKay. "Nothing at all."

Staring for a moment, Rodney didn't look like he believed him, but he let it go, nonetheless. He shifted the bulky box to where it was between them. "I think this is some kind of electronic transceiver."

"You mean their version of a black box? Or a distress call?"

Rodney lifted a screwdriver, and attacked one end. "Both," he replied, gritting his teeth as he tried to wedge the end panel off.

Neither one was expecting the bright light that burst through when the panel popped off with greater ease than the effort Rodney was expending would indicate, and then the harsh, discordant, but painfully familiar, sounds.

_Greetings Colonel Sheppard, Doctor McKay._

John and Rodney paled, and stared at the box in shock.

_This is an interactive program keyed to your biological signatures. You see, we've left you a…message._

"Get someone," urged Sheppard. The noise was causing a headache, and he wanted someone else here to verify what they were hearing.

Rodney tapped the ear piece, calling with clipped words, "Carson, Elizabeth, I need you both in my lab."

"Rodney?" That was Beckett, then Elizabeth, "Understood."

Neither one could say more because the mental voice grew louder.

_We are not an aggressive people, and though we do protect, there has been no reason for weaponry…till now. Your people have only created a delay. We know of your existence, and we know how dangerous your continued unfettered movements prove to be – as example, that you are hearing this message because of the destruction of our ship._

_We will create offensive technology, and we will be back._

There was a booming sound in John's head that made him cry out in pain, and then everything faded to white…

OoO

"He's waking up."

"Are you sure, because he doesn't look like he's waking up to me," Rodney said to Carson – and John could just picture McKay leaning over him.

John tried to get his eyes to open, but they only went halfway. "M'up," he slurred.

"And you sound just like it, too," scoffed Rodney.

"Wha -" John finally had his eyes open, but now he tried to sit up, finding it a lot harder than he thought it should be. He blinked at McKay, who was dressed in scrubs and sitting up in a bed next to his, while Carson was standing between the two, and not looking very happy. "What happened?" he tried again, this time getting the question out correctly.

"It seems that the debris wasn't as harmless as we thought," admitted Rodney. "After delivering a very Terminatoresque warning, it blew up."

John was beginning to feel like a very slow turn on an old LP record, because he wasn't catching up. "What blew up?"

Carson frowned, and drew out his penlight, moving in for the examination. He flicked it a few times across John's eyes, and grunted. "Seems fine, how do you feel?"

John's shoulders were aching from trying to stay propped up, and he let himself fall back into the pillows. "Confused," irritably, he tried to ignore the throbbing in his forehead.

"Any queasiness, blurry vision?" prodded Beckett.

Looking uneasily at Rodney, John answered honestly, "Yes, and no."

Now concern replaced Beckett's frown and he moved his hands to John's head, massaging through the colonel's hair.

"Ouch!" John yelped, when Carson hit a tender spot.

"You must've hit your head on something," Beckett muttered, pulling his hands away and taking another look in Sheppard's eyes, and held up two fingers. "That explains why ye took longer to wake than Rodney, now, how many fingers, Colonel?"

John blinked. Two. He was pretty sure there were only two there. "Two," he replied, and looked around Beckett to see Rodney, who was watching with a hooded stare. "McKay – did you know the thing was going to explode?"

The hooded stare disappeared. "Oh, right – I knew it was going to explode, and I thought 'Hey, we haven't been patients in the infirmary enough', so I let it blow up in our face." Insult was painted in every line on his face.

"A simple yes or no is all I need." God, his head really hurt.

"Regardless of what either one of you want, you'll both be staying overnight." Beckett tucked his penlight back in the pocket on his lab coat, and folded his arms. "Rodney, before the explosion, you called for Elizabeth and I to come down to your lab, do you remember why?"

Rodney thought back to those moments leading up to everything blanking out for both of them, and John could see he was concentrating on the events. Sheppard himself thought back, but all he remembered was finding a piece of the robot trainer that'd been assigned to him, and then nothing.

McKay's mouth dropped open in surprise. "I don't remember," he said panicked. "Why can't I remember? There was a warning…"

Carson reached over for McKay's shoulders, and twisted him gently down into the bed. "It's okay, Rodney – it's possible you bumped your head, as well. It'll come back…or maybe it won't. It doesn't matter."

"But it does," Rodney protested, and Sheppard had the same gut feeling that it did. "What was it about? The explosion?"

Turning the lights down low, Carson waved a nurse over and told her to check on them in three hours. "I've got to go brief Elizabeth on your condition," he explained. "Rest, and we'll keep taking it a day at a time. It'll either come back, or it won't. Getting upset won't help."

Rodney jerked his head numbly, and Sheppard didn't say anything, so Carson frowned at them both one last time before leaving.

They stared at each other for a moment, before Sheppard went first. "Something important happened in your lab, Rodney. I can feel it."

McKay chewed his lip. "I know. But what?"

And they stared some more, because neither one could remember…

**The End…or is it?**

**Additional AN: Just had to note that the Boss Hog reference comes from a popular show when we were growing up - Dukes of Hazzard (Rodney McKay and John Sheppard - both their characters and the actors - are my age and this show was mega popular so I'm going to take a leap and guess that McKay would've seen it at some point being our next door neighbor and knowing that they do tend to get USA aired shows). **


End file.
